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LETTERS 



FROM 



THE BACKWOODS 



AND THE 



ADIRONDAC 



BY / 

THE REV. J. T. HE AD LEY. 



NEW YORK: 
JOHN S. TAYLOR, 

143 NASSAU STREET. 
1850. 



V<^\V 



40376 



Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by 

JOHN S. TAYLOR, 

III tlie Clerk's OHice of the District Court for the Southern District of 
New York. 






CONTENTS 



LETTER I. 

MOUNT TAHAWUS, 5 

LETTER IL 

LOG DRIVING, ....... 10 

LETTER IIL 

ASCENT OF MOUNT TAHAWUS— DIFFICULTIES OF THE 
WAY— GLORIOUS PROSPECT FROM THE TOP, . . I(i 

LETTER IV. 

DESCENT FROM MOUNT TAHAWUS, . . .25 

LETTER V. 

THE INDIAN PASS, . . . . . .31 

LETTER YL 

LONG LAKE, ....... 39 

LETTER YII. 

TROUT FISHING— MITCHELL, . . . .46 



IV CONTEXTS. 

LETTER VIIL 

TROUTING — A DUCK PROTECTING HER YOUNG BY 
STRATAGEM— SABBATH IN THE FOREST, . . 53 

LETTER IX. 

LONG LAKE COLONY— A LOON— CROTCHET LAKE, . 59 

LETTER X. 

SHOOTING A DEER— SUPPER IN THE WOODS— MODERN 
SENTIMENTALISTS— THE INFLUENCE OF NATURE, 65 

LETTER XL 

FLOATING DEER— A NIGHT EXCURSION— MORNING IN 
THE WOODS, ....... 72 

LETTER XIL 

LOST IN THE WOODS— AN OLD INDIAN AND HIS DAUGH- 
TER— MITCHELL— ADIRONDAC IRON WORKS, . 80 

LETTER XIII. 

THE FIRE ISLANDS, . . ... . . 86 

LETTER XIV. 

THE FIRE ISLANDS, 92 

LETTER XV. 

THE FIRE ISLANDS, 99 



LETTERS 



THE BACKWOODS 



LETTER I. 

MOUNT TAHAWUS. 



June 18. 



I CAN scarcely believe, as I stand this evening and 
look around on the forest that girdles me in, and 
hear naught but the dash of the waterfall at the base 
of yonder gloomy mountain, or the rapid song of the 
whippowil as it rings like the notes of a fife through 
the clear air, that I stood a few days ago in Broad- 
way, and heard only the surge of human life as it 
swept fiercely by. The change could not be greater 
if I had been transferred to another planet. The 
paved street changed for the mountain slope — the 
rattle of omnibuses and carriages for the rush of 
streams and music of wind amid the tree tops — the 
voices of the passing multitude for the song of birds 
and chirp of the squirrel. It seems but a day since I 
2 



6 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

stood where the living current rolls strongest, and felt 
perfectly at home amid the walled houses and packed 
city; yet now, as the trees shake their green awning 
over my head, and the great luminous stars sparkle 
in the intensely clear sky that seems to rest its bright 
arch almost on the tops of the tall hemlocks, New 
York appears like a past dream. Oh, how quiet na- 
ture is ! In New York, everything is in a hurry. 
There is not a man there that walks the streets who 
seems to be at leisure. Even the horses catch the 
hurrying spirit ; and everything goes tearing along 
as if the minutes were crowded with great events. But 
look ! See how lazily that tree swings its green top 
in the wind — how quietly the brook goes talking to 
itself through the forest — and how leisurely the very 
clouds swing themselves over the evening heavens! 
Just stand here a moment on the edge of this clearing, 
and listen to the sounds that rise on the evening air. 
The drowsy tinkle of the cow-bell sinks like long-for- 
gotten music on the heart, while the scream of the 
night-hawk far up in the heavens seems like a voice 
from the spirit world. Its dusky form glances now 
and then on the eye, and then is lost in the far upper 
regions, while his cry pierces clear and shrill through 
the gloom, telling where his pinion still floats him on- 
ward. The smoke of the clearing wreaths in slow and 
spiral columns skyward; while the whistle of the 
woodman, as he shoulders his axe and wends his 
weary way to his log hut, is the only human sound 
that disturbs the tranquillity of the scene. And now 
the twilight deepens over all. The fire of the distant 



MOUNT TAHAWUS. 7 

fallow flashes up in the darkness, and the cry of the 
boding owl comes like a voice of warning on the ear. 
How, under the influences of such a scene, the heart 
throws ofi* link after link of its bondage, and the soul 
loses its sternness and fierce excitement, and becomes 
subdued as a child's 1 The man sinks before the early 
dreamer, and dear associations come thronging back 
on the staggering memory like sad angels, and the 
spirit reaches forth its arms after the good and the 
true. At least it is so with me ; and the presence of 
nature changes me so that I scarcely know myself. 
A new class of feelings and emotions is awakened 
within me — new hopes and new resolutions spring to 
birth. I think more of that unseen world towards 
which I am so rapidly borne, and of the mysteries of 
the life that surrounds me. In New York, life is all 
practical and outward. Action^ action, action is the 
constant cry, and action it is till thought gets fright- 
ened away. 

Ice-cream saloons — crowds on crowds of prome- 
naders — the rattle of wheels — the ringing of the fire 
bells, and one continuous roar rising like the sea over 
all, are the contrasts your city now presents to the 
scene I have been describing. The night closes over 
haunts of vice, dens of infamy, the gambling house, 
and the drunken revel. Behold how peacefully it here 
shuts down over the forest, where the wild bird has 
gone to sleep beside its mate, and not a restless un- 
holy spirit is abroad ! 

And then the morning — how difi'erent! The morn- 
ing in New York is always associated in my mind 



8 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

with markets. Soon as the sun mounts the dusty 
heavens, New York seems to open its mouth and rush 
for the markets. But here by the forest, as the un- 
clouded sun wheels with a lordly majestic motion 
above the mountain, ten thousand birds seem to have 
awakened at once. I would you could listen a moment. 
It is a perfect storm of sound. From the soft warble 
of the robin to the shrill scream of the woodpecker, 
there is every variety of note, and yet all in accord. 
I said nature was quiet, and every moving thing at 
leisure ; but I was mistaken. These birds seem to be 
in a hurry, as if they had not time to utter all their 
music ; and they pour it forth in such rapid, thrilling 
strains, that the ear is perfectly confused. 

Ah! there are other times when nature is not tran- 
quil ; for now, while I am writing, a dark shadow has 
fallen on my paper, and as I look up I see the sun has 
left the blue sky and buried his burning forehead in a 
black thunder cloud that is heaving, gloomy as mid- 
night, over the mountain. The lightning searches its 
bosom, as with an assassin's knife, and the deep low 
growl that follows is like the slow waking up of wrath. 
The distant tree tops rock to and fro in the gathering 
blast, and a hush like death is on everything. Still 
I love it. I love the strong movement of those black 
masses. They seem conscious of power and of the 
terror of their frown, as it darkens on the crouching 
earth. It is black as midnight ; but I know before 
long the sunbeams will burst forth like the smile of 
God, the birds break out in sudden thanksgiving, and 
the blue sky kiss the green mountain in delight. ^ 



MOUNT TAHAWUS. 9 

Thus does nature change — yet is ever beautiful in 
her changes. I did not design, when I commenced 
this letter, to fill it up with such a diary of my feel- 
ings ; but the truth is, when I first get into the coun- 
try, at least into the backwoods, I wish to do nothing 
for the first two or three days but lie down on the hill- 
side, and look at the trees and sky, and think of the 
strange contrast between the life I have just left and 
the one that surrounds me. It takes some time to ad- 
just myself to it — quite a preparation — before I can 
enter on that active life of fishing, tramping, and 
camping out in the woods, which my health demands; 
and it is but natural you should have my transition 
state. At least, it is natural I should write out that 
which is uppermost in me. 

I expect soon to start for the Adirondac Mountains, 
at whose broken terminations I now rest, I have some 
things to say about Long Lake and Mr. Todd's co- 
lony there, which will put your readers right respect- 
ing it. You know, two years ago, that Mr. Todd took 
me up rather sharply in your paper on account of 
some statements I made respecting that country. I 
made no reply then; but I will now show that I was 
not only right in every particular, but that every 
prediction I then made of the fate of the colony has 
already proved true. 



10 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 



LETTER II. 



LOG DRIVING. 



Backwoods, July 6t7i. 
Did you ever witness a log driving ? It is one of 
the curiosities of the backwoods, where streams are 
made to subserve the purpose of teams. On the 
steep- mountain side, and along the shores of the 
brook which in spring time becomes a swollen torrent, 
tearing madly through the forest, the tall pines and 
hemlocks are felled in winter and dragged or rolled 
to the brink of the streams. Here every man marks 
his own, as he would his sheep, and then rolls them 
in, when the current is swollen by the rains. The 
melted snow along the acclivities comes in a perfect 
sheet of water down, and the streams rise as if by 
magic to the tops of their banks, and a broad, resist- 
less current goes sweeping like a live and gloomy 
thing through the deep forest. The foam-bubbles 
sparkle on the dark bosom that floats them on, and 
past the boughs that bend with the stream, and by 
the precipices that frown sternly down on the tumult. 
The rapid waters shoot onward like an arrow, or 
rather a visible spirit on some mysterious errand, 
seeking the loneliest and most fearful passages the 



LOG DRivma. 11 

untrodden wild can furnish. I have seen the waves 
running like mad creatures in mid ocean, and watched 
with strange feelings the moonlit deep as it gently 
rose and fell like a human bosom in the still night ; 
but there is something more mysterious and fearful 
than these in the calm yet lightning-like speed of a 
deep, dark river, rushing all alone in its might and 
majesty through the heart of an unbroken forest. 
You cannot see it till you stand on the brink, and 
then it seems so utterly regardless of you or the 
whole world without, hasting sternly on to the ac- 
complishment of some dread purpose! 

But such romance as this never enters the head of 
your backwoodsman. The first question he puts him- 
self, as he thrusts his head through the branches and 
looks up and down the current, is — " Is the stream 
high enough to run logs?" If it is, then fall to work; 
away go the logs, one after another, down the bank, 
and down the mountain, with a bound and a groan, 
splash into the water. 

The heavy rains about the first of July had so 
swollen the stream near which I am located^ that all 
thoughts of fishing for several days were abandoned, 
and the log drivers had it all to themselves. So, 
strolling through the forest, I soon heard the continu- 
ous roar that rose up through the leafy solitudes, and 
in a few moments stood on a shelving rock, and saw 
the lark-swift stream before me as it issued from the 
cavernous green foliage above, and disappeareol with- 
out a struggle in the same green abyss below. I 
stood for a long time lost in thought. How much 



12 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

like life was that current in its breathless haste — how 
like it, too, in its mysterious appearance and depart- 
ure ! It shot on my sight without a token of its 
birthplace, and vanished without leaving a sign 
whither it had gone. So comes and goes this mys- 
terious life of ours — this fearful time-stream, sweeping 
so noiselessly and steadily on. And there where that 
bubble dances and swims, now floating, calmly though 
■ swiftly," along the surface, and now caught in an eddy, 
and whirled in endless gyrations round, and now buf- 
feted back by the hard rock against whose side it was 
cast, is another life symbol. Such am I and such is 
every man — bubbles on the dread time-stream ; now 
moving calmly over the waters of prosperity — now 
caught in the eddies of misfortune, till, bewildered and 
stunned, we are hurled against the rocks of discou- 
ragement ; yet, ever afloat, and ever borne rapidly on, 
we are moving from sight to be swallowed up in that 
vast solitude from whose echoless depths no voice 
has ever yet returned. Life, life ! how solemn and 
mysterious thou art ! I could weep as I lean froni 
this rock and gaze on the dark rushing waters. 
Thought crowds on thought, and sad memories come 
sweeping up, and future forebodings mingle in the 
solemn gathering, and emotions no one has ever yet 
expressed, and feelings that have struggled since 
time began for utterance, swell like that swollen 
water over my heart, and make me inconceivably sad 
here iB the depths of the forest. 

How long I might have stood absorbed in this half- 
dreamy, half- thoughtful mood, I know not, had I not 



LOG DRIVING. 13 

heard a shout below me. Passing down, I soon came 
to a steep bank, at the base of which several men 
were tumbling logs into the stream. I watched them 
for some time, and was struck with the coolness with 
which one would stand half under a perfect embank- 
ment of logs, and hew away to loosen the whole, 
while another with a handspike kept them back. 
Once, after a blow, I saw the whole mass start, when 
'' Take care! take care !" burst in such startling tones 
from my lips, that the cool chopper sprung as if stung 
by an adder; then, with a laugh at his own foolish 
fright, stepped back to his place again. The man 
with the handspike never even turned his head, but 
with a half grunt, as much as to say '' Green horn 
from the city," held on. It was a really exciting 
scene — the mad leaping away of those huge logs, and 
their rapid, arrowy-like movement down the stream. 
At length I off with my coat, and, laying my gun 
aside, seized a handspike, and was soon behind a 
huge log, tugging and lifting away. I was on the 
top of a high bank, and when the immense timber 
gave way, and bounded with a dull sound from rock 
to rock, till it struck with a splash into the very cen- 
tre of the current, my sudden shout followed it. As 
that log struck the water, it buried itself out of sight, 
and then, as it rose to the surface for a single 
moment, it stood perfectly still in its place except that 
it rolled rapidly on its axis — the next moment it 
yielded to the impetuosity of the current, and darted 
away as if inherent with life, and moved straight 
towards a precipice that frowned over the water be- 



14 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

low. Recoiling from the shock, its head swung off 
with the stream, and away it shot out of sight. 

The stream gets full of these logs, which often 
catch on some rock or projecting root, and accumu- 
late till a hundred or more will be all tangled and 
matted together. There they lie, rising and falling on 
the uneasy current, while a driver slowly and care- 
fully steps from one to another, feeling with his feet 
and handspike to see where the drag is. When he 
finds it, he loosens it, perhaps with a single blow, and 
away the whole rolling tumbling mass moves. Now 
look out, bold driver ; thy footing is not of the most 
certain kind, and a wild and angry stream is beneath 
thee. Yet see how calmly he views the chaos ! The 
least hurry or alarm, and he is lost. But no ; he 
moves without agitation; now balancing himself a 
moment as the log he steps upon shoots downward, 
now quickly passing to another as it rolls under him, 
he is gradually working his way towards the shore. 
He has almost succeeded in reaching the bank, when 
the whole floating mass separates so far that he can 
no longer step from one to another, and, after looking 
about a moment, he quietly seats himself astraddle of 
one and darts like a fierce rider down the current. 
These logs are carried twenty and thirty miles in 
this way, passing from small streams to larger ones, 
through lakes and along rivers, and are finally 
brought up at the wished-for point by stringing poles 
across the rivef, which stops their further descent. 
Several different men have clubbed together to drive 
the stream, and here they pick out each his own, by 



LOG DRIVING. 15 

the mark he has given it, just as you have seen farm- 
ers, in a confused flock of sheep, select their own, 
saying ever and anon, ^' This is mine, cropped in both 
ears and slit in the right," &c. When the logs get 
fastened together on rocks, &c., it is called a ''jam." 
I saAV one of these the other day upon a huge mass 
of rocks, over which the water never flows except in 
the highest freshet ; and I should think there were 
four or five thousand of them there thrown into all 
shapes and attitudes — the most chaotic-looking mass 
you ever beheld. 

This "driving the river," as it is called, is one of 
the chief employments of your backwoodsman in 
spring time, and it is curious to see what an object of 
interest the river becomes. Its rise and fall are the 
chief topics of conversation. So goes the world. 
New York has its objects of interest — the country 
village its — and the settler on the frontier his ; each 
filled with the same anxieties, hopes, fears, and wishes 
— overcome by the same discouragements and mis- 
fortunes, and working out the same fate ; — man still 
with that mysterious soul and restless heart of his, 
greater than a king, and immortal as an angel, yet 
absorbed with straws and maddened or thrown into 
raptures by a little glittering dust. 

My next will be from the heart of Hamilton county, 
and I shall have something to say of Long Lake 
colony. 



16 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 



LETTER III. 

ASCENT OF MOUNT TAIIAWUS — DIFFICULTIES OF TUB 
WAY — GLORIOUS PROSPECT FROM TUB TOP. 

I HAD finally resolved to ascend this mountain, tlie 
highest in the Empire State, and the highest in the 
Union with the exception of Mount Washington. 
The hunter Cheney told me that not a human foot 
had pressed its lordly summit for six years, and that 
it would require three days to ascend it and return. 
It was fifteen miles to the top, through a pathless 
wilderness, across rivers and amid tangled thickets, 
and over swamps that would task the powers of the 
strongest man. As he looked at my pale visage and 
slender frame, he intimated that I could not accom- 
plish the ascent. I told him I could, and what was 
more, I could do it all in a day and a half, passing 
only one night in the woods instead of two. He said 
it was impossible ; that it had never been done but 
once in that time, and then it was performed by him- 
self and another man from necessity, and that he did 
not get over it for a week after. 

Notwithstanding these discouragements, our little 
party concluded to start ; and so, on Friday morning, 
before the leaves had shaken the dew from their fin- 



ASCENT TO MOUNT TAHAWUS. 17 

gers, we stretched off in Indian file, Cheney the hunt- 
er leading. With a hatchet in his hand, and a pack 
filled with pork and venison and bread on his back, 
he appeared a fit leader for such a vagabond-looking 

company as we were. Next came B n, carrying a 

tea-kettle in his hand, while I followed close after, 
with a long stick in my hand to steady me in leaping 
chasms and climbing precipices, and a green Scotch 
blanket, rolled up and fastened by a rope around my 
shoulders, to cover me with at night. The rest came 
straggling along, each with something in his hand 
necessary for our dinner or night's lodging in the 
woods. After moving in this way about six miles, we 
came to some burnt logs and a rude bier, on which a 
dead man had lain all night. Mr. Henderson, a 
wealthy gentleman of Jersey City, and who owned a 
portion of the Adirondac Iron Works, had shot himself 
accidentally with a pistol a short way from this spot, 
and here he had been brought, to wait for daylight to 
guide those who bore him through the woods. His 
little boy, eleven years old, was with him, and 
"There," said the hunter, pointing to a log, "I sat 
all night, and held the poor fel!ow in my arms, until 
at length he sobbed himself to sleep." A little farther 
on, we came to a small pond beside which stood a rock 
where the accident happened. "I stood there," 
said Cheney, pointing across the pond, "with the little 
boy by my side, and was busy in preparing a raft on 
which we might take some trout for supper, when I 
heard a shot. I looked across, <ind «aw Mr. Hender- 
son flinging his arms rapidly towards heaven, and then 
8 



18 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

across his breast, exclaiming, ^I am shot !' His little 
son fainted, and fell at my feet. As soon as I could, 
I hurried to the spot, and found Mr. Henderson sit- 
ting on the ground, supported by his friend, and going 
fast." He committed his soul to his Maker, told his 
son to be a good boy and give his love to his mother, 
and in a few minutes more passed the mystery of 
mysteries, and entered on the scenes of the boundless 
hereafter. He was a man of noble character and 
generous disposition, and loved by all who knew him. 
It is singular to observe how often men fall victims 
to that which they most dread and most guard against. 
Mr. Henderson was nervously afraid of firearms ; so 
much so that he could not see a man passing along 
the street with a gun on his shoulder, without going 
out to inquire if it was loaded. He carried the pistol 
solely as a means of defence in the w^oods, and in lay- 
ing it down on a rock, struck the Irock while the 
muzzle was pointed directly towards him. Poor 
Cheney stood and sighed over the spot, and shook his 
head mournfully, exclaiming, "Oh, he was a noble 
man!" It was affecting to witness such deep and last- 
ing feeling in a man who had spent half his life in the 
woods. — You can well imagine that it was with silent 
and thoughtful steps, and some sad forebodings, we 
again entered the bosom of the forest. 

But I will not enter into the details of this tedious 
tramp. I cannot make you see the dark spruce fo- 
rest, with its carpet of moss, and paths of wild deep 
and bears trodden hard by their frequent passage 
from the mountains to the streams ; nor induce you 



ASCENT TO MOUNT TAHAWUS. 19 

to follow with your eye that crooked river that seems, 
since we last crossed it, to have stolen round and lain 
in ambush in our path, so suddenly and unexpectedly 
does it again appear before us. But, after wading it 
half a dozen times, just stand here a moment on the 
bank of a new stream, and look through those huge 
hemlocks into that awful mountain gorge. That 
lonely sheet of water, spreading there so dark and yet 
so still, is Lake Golden, and looks, amid those savage 
and broken hills, like Innocence sleeping on the lap 
of Wrath. How peaceful and how lonely it seems in 
its solitude! — and it shall linger in the memory like 
some half-sad, half-pleasant dream. 

From this we struck across to the Opalescent River 
— so called from the opalescent stones, some of which 
are very beautiful, that are found in its channel — and 
followed its rocky bed five miles into the mountains. 
Now wading across, and now leaping from rock to 
rock, and again striking out into the thick forest, to 
get around a deep gulf or cataract, we pressed on till 
one o'clock, when we hallooed each other together, 
and began to prepare for dinner. Some old and 
shivered trees, which the floods of spring had brought 
down and lodged against the rocks, served us for fuel. 
Over the crackling fire we hung our tea-kettle, which 
we filled from the limpid stream that crept in rivulets 
around our feet, and, placing some large slices of pork 
on the ends of sticks which we held in the blaze, soon 
had our dinner under full headway. 

Amid the laughter and freedom inseparable from 
a life in the woods, we whilcd away an hour, then 



20 LETTERS FROM TPIE BACKWOODS. 

shouldered again our knapsacks and pressed on. The 
sky, which was clear and beautiful in the morning, 
had drawn a veil over its face, and the clouds, thicken- 
ing every moment, gave omen of a stormy night and 
gloomy day to come. When we set out, ^ye expected 
to encamp at the base of the main peak over night, 
and ascend next morning, but I told Cheney we must 
be on the top before sunset, for in the morning im- 
penetrable clouds might rest upon it, and all our 
labor be lost. We were weary enough to halt, and 
a more forlorn-looking company you never saw than 
we were, as we straggled like a flock of sheep up the 
bed of the stream. At length it began to climb the 
mountain in cataracts, and we after it. It was now 
nearly three o'clock, and we had been walking since 
seven in the morning. Wearied and completely 
fagged out, it seemed almost impossible to make tlfe 
ascent. Up, up, at an angle of nearly forty-five de- 
grees — flogged and torn at every step by the long, 
thorn-like branches of the spruce trees — leaping from 
rock to rock, or crawling from some cavity into which 
we had fallen through the treacherous moss, we panted 
on, striving in vain to get even a sight of the summit 
that mocked our hard endeavors. One hunter with 
us several times gave out completely, and we were 
compelled to stop and wait for him. Crossing now 
a bear-track, and now coming to a bed where a moose 
had rested the night before, we at length saw the 
naked cone, forming the extremest summit of the 
mountain. There it stood, round, gray, cold, and 
naked, in the silent heavens. A deep gully lay be- 



ASCENT TO MOUNT TAHAWUS. 21 

tween us and it, filled with spruce trees about three 
feet high, and growing so close together as to form a 
perfect matting. Through these it was almost im- 
possible to force our way, and indeed, in one instance, 
I walked a considerable distance on the tops, without 
touching ground. This difficulty being surmounted, 
next came the immense cone of rock, bending its awful 
arch away into the heavens, seemingly conscious of 
its majesty and grandeur. Up this we were compelled 
to go, a part of the time, on all fours ; but at length, 
at four o'clock, we stood on the bald crown. The 
sun, though stooping to the western horizon, seemed 
near the zenith, and not to move one minute of a 
degree downward on its path. But how shall I de- 
scribe the prospect below and around ? I have stood 
on the Alps, and looked off on a sea of peaks, and re- 
mained awe- struck amid the majesty and terror around 
me — feeling as if I were treading on the margin of 
Jehovah's mantle. But the bright snow-cliffs and 
flashing glaciers gave life and animation to the scene, 
while here all was green, dark, and sombre. Those 
are not peaks around us, but huge misshapen masses, 
pushing their gigantic proportions heavenward — now 
formed of black rock that undulates along the sum- 
mit like a frozen wave, and now covered with low 
dark fir trees, that seem like a drapery of mourning 
over some sleeping or dead monster. All around is 
wilder than fancy ever painted or described. Scarce 
a hand's breadth of cultivated land in the whole mo- 
tionless panorama. There, far, far below, stretching 
away for miles, is a deep dark lane through the forest, 
3* 



22 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

telling where a swift river is sweeping onward, but 
not a murmur rises up to this still spot, nor a flash of 
its bright waters escapes from the sullen woods that 
shut it in. To your left is Mount Mclntyre, black 
as night, and rising from the sea of forest below like 
some monument of a past world. There, too, is Mount 
Golden, and further on White Face, with the immense 
scar on its forehead ; and there, and there — but it is 
vain even to count the summits that seem to have 
been piled here in some awful hurry of nature. As 
you thus stand with your face to the south, the whole 
ranoje of the Green Mountains, from Canada to where 
they sink into Massachusetts stretches in one grand 
bold pencil-stroke along the sky. Far away to the 
southeast, a storm is raging, and the clouds lift and 
heave along the dark bosom of the mountain, like the 
foldings of a vast curtain stirred by the wind. At 
the base, and losing itself in the distance, spreads 
away Lake Champlain, with all its green islands on 
its bosom. From this immense height and distance, 
the elevated banks disappear, and the whole beautiful 
sheet appears' like water flowing over a flat country. 
Burlington is a mere toy-shop in the hazy distance. 
Turning to the west and southwest, you overlook all 
that primeval wilderness of which Long Lake is the 
centre; and how grand and gloomy is the scene — an 
interminable forest, now descending in a bold sweep 
to the margin of some lake, and now climbing and 
overstepping the lordly mountain in its progress. 
Summit overlaps summit, ridge intersects ridge, and 
all flowing away together, in one wild majestic sea, 



ASCENT TO MOUNT TAHAWUS. 23 

towards the western horizon. The only relief to this 
solitude is the lakes that dot the bosom of the forest 
in every direction. But there is one as far as the 
eye can reach, which, either from its overshadowed 
position, or the natural hue of its water, is black as 
ink. It looks in its still and dark aspect like the pool 
of death ! But what a tremendous gulf surrounds you, 
as you thus stand nearly six thousand feet in the air, 
on this isolated dome! On one side, where the forest 
comes boldly up to the base, an avalanche of earth 
has swept, cutting a lane for itself through the strong 
trees, like the scythe of the mower through the grass. 
But just take one more sweep of the eye around 
the horizon before those clouds which come dashing 
so like spirits through the gulfs, leaving a night- cap 
on every summit in their progress, shall obstruct the 
vision. You take in an area of nearly four hundred 
miles in circumference just by turning on your heel. 
Oh, how thought crowds on thought, and emotion 
struggles with emotion, as you stand and gaze on this 
scene where the Almighty seems to have wrought 
with his sublimest power ! Cities and kingdoms — the 
battling of armies — the struggles of the multitude, 
and the ambition and strifes of men, sink away into 
insignificance. The troubles of life seem small, and 
its petty anxieties and cares are all forgotten. God 
and nature seem one, and sublimity and power their 
only attributes. One cannot refrain from asking 
himself unceasingly, did His strong arm heave those 
mountains on high and lay their deep foundations ? 
Did His hand spread this limitless mantle of green 



24 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

below, sprinkle all these lakes around, and fill these 
vast solitudes with life ? Subdued and solemn, the 
soul whispers the reply to its own inquiries, and in- 
voluntarily renders homage to the Infinite One. 

But all scenes must end, and we prepared to de- 
part. As I came to the brow of a rock and looked 
off, I heard a shout below, and there, toiling painfully 
up, I saw a friend, a young clergyman, who had pro- 
mised to meet me at Adirondac, but did not arrive till 
after we left. He was dripping with perspiration ; and 
I took my green blanket, and folding him also in it, 
walked back over the summit, to give him the view I 
had been gazing on for an hour. The freezing blast 
swept with piercing power over us ; but, though my 
teeth were chattering with cold, I enjoyed the mute 
surprise and awe of my friend as he stood and gazed 
around him. 

At length, approaching night warned us to depart, 
for we had yet to build us a hut to sleep in, and get 
our supper before dark, and so we bade the lordly 
summit good bye, and clattered furiously down its 
sides. 



DESCENT FROM MOUNT TAHAWUS. 25 



LETTER IV. 

DESCENT FROM MOUNT TAHAWUS. 

On our descent from Mount Taliawus, we began to 
look eagerly around for a dry spot where we might 
make our encampment. Cheney, who was at the 
head of our straggling column, with his axe in his 
hand, pushing on at a brea'k-neck pace, finally halted, 
and said that we must stop somewhere immediately, 
for it was growing dark, and we should not be able 
to build our shanty or cut fuel for the night. The 
place he chose was a dan^p mossy spot, darkly sha- 
dowed with fir trees. It was a gloomy-looking place ; 
but we were all too tired to make any objection, and 
so, in a few minutes, two or three axes were resound- 
ing through the forest, and crack ! crash ! went the 
trees on every side of us. "Each man must pick his 
own bed," said our guide ; which meant that every 
man must cut what boughs he himself wanted. I 
crawled up from the stream where I had been sitting 
bathing my feverish hands and face, and went to 
work. Scattered around, all were busy hacking off 
fir tree boughs with their knives, while the guides 
and strong men who accompanied us drew huge trees 
together for a fire, and put up a shanty. It was 



26 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

voted to place nothing but green boughs over this for 
a covering from the dew ; but the dark and sombre 
heavens told too well that a storm was at hand, and 
I insisted that bark should be placed at least over 
the spot I occupied. They finally covered the whole 
with bark, and it was well they did, for the rain soon 
began to come down, and continued to fall the live- 
long night. But our fire blazed up cheerfully in the 
gloom; the long trunks were on fire from end to end; 
while those standing near would now and then shoot 
up a spiral flame, conspiring to render the scene still 
more picturesque. One tree, standing close by, threat- 
ened to burn off before morning, and I asked the 
guide if it would not be dangerous to sleep so 
near it. He cast his eye up the tall trunk a moment, 
and coolly replied, as he slashed off a piece of roast 
venison, that "it would fall t'other way.'' This was 
calculating rather closer than I liked, but one soon 
learns there is no appeal from the decision of a hunt- 
er. We presented a singular group as we sat in a 
semicircle around our blazing fire, each with his morsel 
on a chip before him. At length, however, we turned 
in. AVith a few boughs placed over a green stump 
just cut, for a pillow, I rolled myself in my blanket, 
and stretched out before the fire. In a short time, 
the crackling of the flames and the low steady patter 
of the rain on the leaves sung me to sleep, and my 
troubles were forgotten. About midnight, however, 
I was waked up by an intense heat, and, rousing my- 
self, I looked about a moment and laughed long and 
loud. One poor fellow, who had lain and shivered 



DESCENT FKOM MOUNT TAHAWUS. 27 

without anything over him in the clamp air, had got 
up and piled on such a quantity of dry fuel, that it 
was roasting hot. A row of men lay stretched out 
before me like pickled herring, and it was inconceiva- 
bly ludicrous to see them turn and twist in their 
sleep to escape the heat. First on one side and then 
on the other, they kept rolling about, until at length 
one started up, and looking a moment at the fire, 
shot like a bolt into the woods. Another and an- 
other followed in speechless silence, until the whole 
shanty was empty of every one but myself. I lay 
at the extreme end, and hence could safely watch 
operations. 

The morning, the welcome morning, at length 
came, though with a heavy fog, and we again took 
up our line of march through the wet woods, and at 
noon emerged into the little clearing where are sta- 
tioned the Adirondac Iron Works. ''Oh, but weary 
wights were we" — nearly" every man of us, from the 
hunter down, more dead than alive. I was struck, on 
this expedition, and indeed on several others, with 

the kindness of Mr. B n, a tall, powerful man, 

with one of those frames of iron which encase a feel- 
ing and generous heart. He seemed to take special 
charge of me, offering continually to ease me of my 
load, and at night always insisting I should have the 
best spot in which to sleep. Some of the time I suf- 
fered severely in the woods from sickness, and then 
there was nothing he would not do for me. I never 
before received kindness which so won upon me, and 



28 LETTERS FKOM THE BACKWOODS. 

the remembrance of which fills me with more grate- 
ful feelings. 

The next day was the Sabbath, and though eighty 
or a hundred workmen are congregated here, there 
is no Sabbath to them except that which the lordly 
hills have — solemn and majestic, it may be, but with 

no preacher but nature. We persuaded W d, 

tired as he was, to preach ; and word was sent round 
to the few inhabitants. They came together in a 
little unplastered room, and listened attentively to 
two certainly most excellent discourses. It was 
pleasant to keep Sabbath amid the old hills. It was 
a beautiful day, and deep silence rested on the mount- 
ains and forest, and the voice of prayer went up 
with the great hymn of nature. And oh, how quietly 
and sadly the Sabbath evening came down on that 
lonely spot, and how brightly the great stars looked 
with their luminous eyes over the mountain heights ! 
My heart went back to my friends, and I lay down 
and dreamed of those I loved. 

There was one thing, however, I did not like. The 
agent of these iron works, a Scotchman by birth, 
and his wife, were the only professors of religion in 

this spot, and yet he charged my friend W d for 

keeping him over the Sabbath. If two sermons 
were not worth a day's board, he cannot value the 
Gospel very highly. His tax for the support of reli- 
gious services would be rather small, one would sus- 
pect, and it was the least he could do to give the 
man who had labored for his good and those under 
him a free house and an open heart. I had much 



DESCENT FROM MOUNT TAIIAWUS. 29 

rather he would have added the amount to my bill, 
for he was a gentlemanly man, and treated us with 
great kindness. 

Some may ask what kind of animals roam these 
forests. First, there is the moose, the tallest of 
American wild animals, being found sometimes eight 
feet high. They are commonly hunted in the spring 
on snow shoes. The snow usually falls here to the 
depth of four and five feet; and in the early spring, 
after a thaw and subsequent frost, a stiff crust is 
formed which will sustain the hunter on his snow 
shoes, while it cuts dreadfully the legs of the moose. 
Hence they do not travel at this season, but, as the 
hunters call it, '-'-yard.'' That is, one, or two, or 
three together, will beat down the snow around them 
in some retired damp place and browse as they beat. 
Another will take a low hill, covered with those trees 
producing buds fit to eat, and while the snow is moist 
begin to travel round and round it, cutting it all up 
into winding paths. He will not stop to eat : but 
when the snow becomes frozen, he follows the path 
he has made, browsing as he goes. When found in 
this position, he cannot run, for the deep snow and 
sharp crust are too much for him, and he falls an easy 
victim to the rifle of the hunter. Deer are frequently 
killed in the same way, and the woods are full of 
them. The wolf then has his feast, for his soft 
spreading paw sustains him as he glides over the 
crust, while the sharp hoof of the poor deer cuts 
through at every step, and he is easily overtaken. 
The bears buried under the snow, or rocks, or roots 
4 



30 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

of trees, sleep out the long winter. Panthers are 
now and then met, but they are shy of man, and 
their sinister faces seldom intrude on his march 
through the forest. Otters and sables are found, 
and the American eagle here soars in his native free- 
dom, lord of the mountain crag. Many a savage 
fight occurs in this wilderness between the hunters 
and wild animals. A cow moose, with her calf be- 
side her, will fight either dogs or men with desperate 
ferocity, and a wounded deer will sometimes turn at 
bay. 

The lakes and streams are full of fish — trout of 
the finest quality ; and as long as one keeps by the 
water-courses, he need not fear starvation. It is im- 
possible, however, to get food on the mountains. 
There all is still, solemn, and deserted, and one 
moves amid the gigantic forms of nature as if he 
were treading on the ruins of a past world. The 
thunder breaking over their summits is the only 
sound that disturbs their repose. The river borne in 
their bosom seems afraid to speak aloud till it has 
reached the valley below ; wdiile the forest folds them 
in with its drapery of green in majestic silence. The 
only bold thing there is the wind, which shakes their 
green crests with a despotic hand, and shouts aloud 
or whispers low, as suits its own erratic mood. 



THE INDIAN PASS. 31 



LETTER V 



THE INDIAN PASS. 



The only object remaining for me to visit, before I 
returned again to civilized life, was tli€ famous Indian 
Pass — probably the most remarkable mountain gorge 
in this country. On Monday morning, a council was 
called of our party, to determine whether we should 
visit it. A teamster from the settlements had agreed 
to come for us this day, to take us out the next; but 
some of our number, fearing his inability to get through 
the woods in one day, proposed we should abandon 
all further expeditions, and make our way homeward. 
But the Indian Pass I was determined to see, even if 
I remained behind alone, and so we all together 
started oif, some of us still lame from our excursion 
to Mount Tahawus. It was six miles through the 
forest, and we were compelled to march in single file. 
Now skirting the margin of a beautiful lake, now 
creeping through thickets, and now stepping daintily 
across a springing morass, we stretched forward until 
we at length struck a stream, the bed of which we 
followed into the bosom of the mountains. We 
crossed deer paths every few rods, and soon the two 
hounds our hunter had taken with him parted from 



32 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

US, and their loud deep bay began to ring and echo 
through the gorge. The instincts with which animals 
are endowed by their Creator on purpose to make 
them successful in the chase is one of the most curi- 
ous things in nature. I watched for a long time the 
actions of one of these noble hounds. With his nose 
close to the leaves, he would double backwards and 
forwards on a track, to see whether it was fresh or 
not, then abandon it at once if he found it too old. 
At length, striking a fresh one, he started off; but 
the next moment, finding he was going back instead 
of forwards on the track, he wheeled and came dash- 
ing past on a furious run, his eyes glaring with ex- 
citement. Soon his voice made the forest ring, and I 
could imagine the quick start it gave to the deer, 
quietly grazing, it might have been, a mile away. 
Lifting its beautiful head a moment, to ascertain if 
that cry of death was on his track, he bounded away 
in the long chase and bold swim for life. Well, let 
them pass : the cry grows fainter and fainter, and 
they, the pursued and pursuer, are but an emblem of 
what is going on in the civilized world from which I 
am severed. Life may be divided into two parts — 
the hunters and the hunted. It is an endless chase, 
where the timid and the weak constantly fall by the 
way. The swift racers come and go like shadows on 
the vision, and the cries of fear and of victory swell 
on the ear and die away, only to give place to another 
and another. 

Thus musing, I pushed on, until at length we left 
the bed of the stream, and began to climb amid 



THE INDIAN PASS. 33 

broken rocks, that were piled in huge chaos up and 
up, as far as the eye could reach. My rifle became 
such a burden, that I was compelled to leave it 
against a tree, with a mark near it to determine its 
locality. I had expected, from paintings I had seen 
of this Pass, that I was to walk almost on a level into 
a huge gap between two mountains, and look up on 
the precipices that toppled heaven-high above me. 
But here was a world of rocks, overgrown with trees 
and moss, over and under and between which we 
were compelled to crawl and dive and work our way 
with so much exertion and care that the strongest 
soon began to be exhausted. Caverns opened on 
every side, and a more hideous, toilsome, break-neck- 
tramp I never took. There was a stream deep down 
somewhere, but no foot could follow it, for it was a 
succession of cascades, with perpendicular walls each 
side, hemming it in. It was more like climbing a 
broken and shattered mountain than entering a gorge. 
At length, however, we came where the fallen rocks 
had made an open space amid the forest, and spread 
a fearful ruin in its place. Near by was a huge rock, 
that, in some former age, had been loosened from its 
high bed, and hurled, with the strength of a falling 
world, below. It was a precipice of itself, from which 
to fall would have been certain death. This was "the 
Church" our guide had spoken of, and it did lift itself 
there like a huge altar, right in front of the main pre- 
cipice, that rose in a naked wall a thoiisayid feet perpen- 
dicular. The top of this '^ churcTi' could be reached 
on one side, and thither we clambered and lay down to 

4* 



34 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

rest ourselves, while from our very feet rose this 
awful cliff, that fairly oppressed me with its near and 
frightful presence. Majestic, solemn and silent, with 
the daylight from above pouring all over its dread 
form, it stood the impersonation of strength and gran- 
deur. I never saw but one precipice that impressed 
me so, and that was in the Alps, in the Pass of the 
Grand Scheideck. I lay on my back, filled with 
strange feelings of the power and majesty of the God 
who had both framed and rent this mountain asunder. 
There it stood still and motionless in its grandeur. 
Far, far away heavenward rose its top, fringed with 
fir trees that looked, at that immense height, like 
mere shrubs — and they, too, did not wave, but stood 
silent and moveless as the rock they crowned. Any 
motion or life would have been a relief — even the 
tramp of the storm, for there was something fearful 
in that mysterious, profound silence. How loudly 
God speaks to the heart when it lies thus awe-struck 
and subdued in the presence of his works. In the 
shadow of such a grand and terrible form, man seems 
but the plaything of a moment, to be blown away 
with the first breath. 

Persons not accustomed to scenes of this kind would 
not at first get an adequate impression of the mag- 
nitude of the precipice. Everything is on such a 
gigantic scale — all the proportions so vast, and the 
mountains so high about it that the real individual 
greatness is lost sight of. But that wall of a thou- 
sand feet perpendicular, with its seams and rents and 
stooping cliffs, is one of the few things in the world 



THE INDIAN PASS. 35 

daguerreotjped on my heart. It frowns on my vision 
in my solitary hours, and with feelings half of sym- 
pathy, I think of it standing there in its lonely ma- 
jesty. 

" Has not the soul, the being of your life, 
Received a shock of awful consciousness, 
In some calm season, when those lofty rocks. 
At night's approach, bring down th' unclouded sky 
To rest upon the circumambient walls ; 
A temple framing of dimensions vast, 
And yet not too enormous for the sound 
Of human anthems, choral song, or burst 
Sublime of instrumental harmony. 
To glorify th' Eternal ! What if these 
Did never break the stillness that prevails 
Here — if the solemn nightingale be mute, 
And the soft woodlark here did never chant 
Her vespers ! Nature fails not to provide 
Impvilse and utterance. The whispering air 
Sends inspiration from the shadowy heights, 
And blind recesses of the cavern'd rocks ; 
The little rills and waters numberless. 
Insensible by daylight, blend their notes 
With the loud streams ; and often at the hour 
When issue forth the first pale stars, is heard, 
Within the circuit of the fabric huge, 

. One voice — one solitary raven, flying 
Athwart the concave of the dark blue dome, 
Unseen — perchance above the power of sight — 
An iron knell ! with echoes from afar, 
Faint and still fainter/' 

I will only add that none of the drawings or paint- 
ings I have seen of this Pass give a correct idea of it. 
We turned our steps homeward, and reached the 



36 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS, 

Adirondac Iron Works at noon, having traveled 
twelve miles, a part of the way on our hands and 
knees. After dinner, it was resolved to push on and 
nit€t our teamster, who, we were afraid, would be com- 
pelled to encamp in the forest alone with his team. 
Getting our guide to row us five miles down Lake 
Sandford, we bade him good-bye, and, shouldering 
our knapsacks, started off. I had received a fall in 
the Pass which stunned me dreadfully, and made 
every step like driving a nail into my brain. Losing 
my footing, I had fallen backwards, and gone down 
head foremost among the rocks — a few feet, either 
side, and this letter had probably never been writ- 
ten. We expected every moment to meet our team- 
ster, but were disappointed, and thus traveled on 
until twilight began to gather over the forest, ad- 
monishing us to seek a place of rest for the night. 
We had now gone sixteen miles from the Adirondacs, 
which, added to the twelve miles to and from the 
Pass, made a severe day's work of it. Twilight 
brought us to the Boreas River, and here we found a 
log shanty which some timber cutters had put up the 
winter before and deserted in the spring. It was a 
lonely-looking thing, dilapidated and ruinous, with 
some straw below, and a few loose boards laid across 
the logs above. We kindled a blazing fire outside, 
and divided our last provisions among us, then sought 
our repose. As I said, only a few boards were laid 
across the logs above, leaving the rest of the loft per- 
fectly open. By getting on to a sort of scaffolding, 
and reaching up to the timbers, we were able to swing 



THE INDIAN PASS. 37 

ourselves up on the few loose boards that furnished a 
scanty platform. After I had succeeded in reaching 
this perch, I helped the others up; but Rev. Mr. 

W d was rather too heavy, and, just as he had 

fairly landed on the boards, one gave way, and down 
he went. I seized him by the collar, while he, with 
one hand fastened to my leg and the other grasping 
the timber, succeeded in arresting his fall, and thus 
probably saved himself a broken limb. We lay in a 
row, on our backs, along this frail scaffolding, filling 
it up from end to end, so that if the outside ones 
should roll a single foot in their sleep, they would be 
precipitated below. A more uncomfortable night I 
never passed, and I lay and watched the chinks in 
the roof for daylight to appear, till it seemed that 
morning would never come. I resolved never again 
to abandon my couch of leaves for boards and a 
ruined hut, through which vermin swarmed in such 
freedom. At length the welcome light broke slowly 
over the mighty forest, and I turned out. Huge 
stones and billets of wood hurled on the roof soon 
brought forth the rest of our companions, and we 
started off. We had nothing to eat, and seven weary 
miles were before us before we could obtain a break- 
fast. The clear morning air could not revive me, and 
I pushed on, more dead than alive. At length we 
emerged into a clearing, and there in a log hut sat 
our teamster, quietly eating his breakfast. The day 
before, he had started through the forest, but becom- 
ing frightened at the wildness and desolateness that 
increased at every step, he turned back. Hungry, 



38 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

cross, and weary, we sat down to breakfast, and then 
stowed ourselves away into a lumber wagon, and rode 
thirty miles to our respective stopping-places. The 
little settlement seemed like a large village to me, 
and the inhabitants the most refined people I had 
ever met. Several days' rest restored me, and then 
I began to feel my system rally, and became con- 
scious of strength and vitality to which I had been a 
stranger for six months. 



LONG LAKE. 39 



LETTER VI. 



LONG LAKE. 



Long Lake, July. 
You have heretofore had a good many letters from 
Long Lake, descriptive of its scenery, capabilities of 
its land, the interesting colony on its borders, &c. 
With regard to the scenery, there can be but one 
opinion — it is unrivaled. Long Lake is one of the 
most beautiful sheets of water I ever floated over, 
and its framework of mountains becomes the glorious 
picture. I never saw a more beautiful island than 
" Round Island," as it is called, situated near mid- 
way of the lake. As you look at it from above or be- 
low, it appears to stand between two promontories, 
that, with their green and rounded points, are striv- 
ing to reach it as they push boldly out into the water; 
while with its abrupt high banks, from which go up 
the lofty pine-trees, it looks like a huge green cylin- 
der, sunk there endwise in the waves. I wish I owned 
that island. It would be pleasant to be possessor of 
so much beauty. I said once, through your paper, 
that this never could be a good farming country, in 
tfcie common acceptation of that term ; and I was 
asked if I had seen this, and that, and the other lake. 



40 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

I now repeat mj former assertion, and say, as then, 
that this might become a good wool-growing region, 
or dairy country, but nothing more. It is, in the first 
place, the most mountainous portion of this State ; in- 
deed, I do not believe there is in the Union a territory 
three hundred miles in circumference so terribly 
rough and wild as this. It is not only mountainous, 
but has the disadvantage of being the source of nearly 
all the waters of northern and eastern New York, 
and hence has less alluvial soil than equally rough 
districts lying along large rivers. All mountainous 
regions have more or less interval land, with a rich, 
deep soil ; but here the intervals are laJces. Water 
occupies the place ordinarily appropriated to towns 
and meadows. There is good land here, no doubt, 
and large tracts which are arable, and w^ould be 
fruitful ; but the question is, what proportion does 
this bear to that which cannot be cultivated? I have 
seen fields of waving grain in the vale of Chamouni, 
and thousands of cattle grazing in rich pastures in 
Grindelwald, and long stretches of meadow in the 
valley of Meyringen ; but it would be ridiculous to 
call the Alpine district a good farming country, for 
all that. I venture to say that there are three hun- 
dred acres in this region a plough will never touch, 
to one that it will. Besides, it is a cold climate here, 
and the summers are short. Neither corn nor wheat 
can be relied on as a crop. Grass, rye, oats, and po- 
tatoes may be grown, and these are all. 

Now here is a colony, called the Long Lake Oo- 
lony, about which much lias been said, much sympa- 



LONG LAKE. 41 

tliy excited, and on which move or less money has 
been expended. And what is its condition ? It has 
btien established for many years, and by this time it 
ought to furnish some inducements to the farmer who 
would locate here, nearly fifty miles from a post- 
office or store, and half that distance from a good 
mill. But what is the truth respecting it ? Not a man 
here supports himself from his farm ; and I can see 
no gain since I Avas here two years ago. Some of the 
best men have left, and those that remain depend on 
the money (some seven hundred dollars) furnished 
by the State for the making of roads, to buy their 
provisions with. The church which was organized 
some time since was never worthy of the name of one ; 
the few men who composed it, with some few excep- 
tions, being anything but religious men. I was told 
by one of the chief men here that one man now con- 
stituted the entire " Congregational Church of Long 
Lake." There are no meetings held on the Sabbath, 
not even a Sabbath school. As I went from house to 
house, I saw books scattered round belonging to the 
Long Lake Library, marked, some of them, with the 
names of the donors ; but they seemed to me thrown 
away. The truth is, the people here, as a general 
thing, would not give a farthing for any religious 
privileges, indeed would rather be without them ; and 
instead of this colony b'eing a centre from which shall 
radiate an immense population, covering the whole of 
this wild regign, it will drag on a miserable existence, 
composed, two-thirds of it, by those who had rather 
hunt than work. 1 do not mean to disparage this 
5 



42 LETTERS FKOM THE BACKWOODS. 

central region of New York ; but I would divest it of 
the romance of dreamers, and the falsehoods of land 
speculators. If settlers could have picked out their 
own farms at Long Lake, and clustered around the 
lower extremity, they might have done well; but 
these lands, which are tolerably fair, speculators have 
retained, selling the poorer portions at a low price to 
tempt buyers. It is in contemplation to drive a rail- 
road through this entire region, reaching from Lake 
Champlain to Bonville near Kome. This, though 
ruinous to the stockholders, would be of great advan- 
tage to the land, by bringing whatever it could pro- 
duce near market. I would like to see this desolate 
country settled ; but it never will be till the west is 
all occupied. An overplus population will subdue it, 
nothing else. Crowding may drive farmers here, but 
no gentler means. Say what men will, it is an aw- 
fully rough, cold, and forbidding country to the farm- 
er. The Swiss from the Alps, or the Scotch from 
the Highlands, might pitch their abodes here, and 
stay — necessity alone will keep the rest; and when 
this forest-covered territory shall '^support a million 
of people,'' the State of New York will show a census 
equal to that of the whole Union at present. As I 
have said, I would not discourage a single man from 
doing his part towards subduing this region ; but I 
would that every one should know precisely what he 
has to expect. Still I should not have made these re- 
marks, had not some statements of mine been contra- 
dicted, and I often been questioned as to their truth. 
Many have wondered that I did not maintain what I 



LONG LAKE. 43 

asserted; but I chose rather to defer it till I again 
visited Long Lake. And now, when I see no mission- 
ary here, no church, no meetings on the Sabbath, and 
no prayer-meetings — not even a school, and many of 
the best men gone, and the wilderness no more en- 
croached on than before — I feel that my former con- 
clusions were sound, and my predictions true. 
. Notwithstanding the forbidding aspect things pre- 
sent, I believe, as I have always said, that this might 
be made a tolerable dairy country. It may be too 
cold for sheep; but if not, wool enough might be 
grown here to supply the world. It needs enterpris- 
ing settlers — men who go to build their fortunes, not 
to save themselves from starvation ; who take pride 
in cultivating society, and have some ambition to 
establish schools and churches. The truth is, this land 
should never have gone out of the hands of govern- 
ment into those of speculators, who seek their own 
interests entirely in the way they dispose of it. Had 
it been left open for every man to choose a portion 
from, the best would have been taken first, and the 
poorer soil been gradually encroached upon by the 
increase of population around flourishing settlements. 
Now the tvorst is first occupied, because first placed 
in the market at a reasonable price, and it will not 
support the buyer. He who comes into this region 
must expect to work hard with little recompense, see- 
a rough stony farm reject his labor, and make up by 
economy what he lacks by acquirement. 

Still, this is a glorious region to the hunter after 
the picturesque and grand in nature. I know nothing 



44 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

equal to it this side of the Alps. These loftj mount- 
ains, folding their summits so calmly and solemnly 
away against the sky — these beautiful lakes in their 
green inclosures sparkling in the sun — these count- 
less islands and winding rivers make it a land of 
beauty and sublimity, that once seen is ever after 
remembered. Still, much of its interest is owing to its 
very wildness. The shores of these lakes look beau- 
tiful because a mantle of foliage sweeps down to the 
very margin of the waters; but where they are cul- 
tivated, rocks and stones present a sterile aspect to 
the beholder. Cut down the trees, and two-thirds of 
all the beauty of this region would depart. There 
would be no sloping shores, carrying the rich mea- 
dow or waving grain to the v/ater's edge, as on the 
Cayuga and Skaneateles Lakes, but in their place ab- 
rupt banks, covered with rocks that no cultivation 
could cover. 

But it is with singular feelings one fresh from the 
city stands here and looks around on the intermina- 
ble forests, and remembers that it is a hard day's 
work to get out to civilized life, and yet that his feet 
are on the soil of New York, and a few roods of 
ground divide him from the waters of the Hudson. 
It is no small job to get here, and to one not accus- 
tomed to the woods it is absolutely frightful. Several 
companies from New York, after penetrating half- 
way into the forest, have become alarmed and dis- 
heartened, and turned back, and I am not surprised 
at it. A young man with me, brought up in the 
country, but along the Cayuga Lake, could not refrain 



LONG LAKE. 45 

from expressions almost of alarm. "How savage!" 
he would say; "it is really Horrible, day after day, 
and nothing but woods." And how solemn it is to 
move all day through a majestic colonnade of trees, 
and feel that you are in a boundless cathedral whose 
organ notes swell and die away with the passing wind 
like some grand requiem. Still more exciting is it to 
lie at midnight by your camp-fire, and watch the 
moon sailing up amid the trees, or listen to the cry 
of the loon, wild and lonely, on the wild and lonely 
lake, or the hoot of the owl in the deep recesses of 
the forest. 



5* 



46 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 



LETTER VII. 

TROUT FISHING — MITCHELL. 

Long Lake, July 10. 

I SPOKE in my last of the farming capabilities 
around Long Lake, and of the colony there, which 
seem to be about on a par — neither being very great 
or very enticing. My remarks, however, did not 
refer to the land beyond Long Lake on the farther 
slopes as they stretch to the Black River country. 
This region I have but slightly visited, and am told 
it is more level and fertile than that portion I have 
been describing. ProTessor F. Benedict, of Yermoilt 
University, has gone over this entire section of the 
State, and he tells me the land is very different 
around Raquet Lake, and so on West. His know- 
ledge of the country is extensive, and he has made 
the most correct surveys of its great chain of lakes 
ever executed — better even than that contained in 
the geological report of the State. 

But my mind was soon off the land and on the 
scenery. I did not come here to speculate in town 
lots, to found a colony, or subserve the interests of 
landowners. Being after health, I sought the fa- 
tiguing tramp and coarse fare of the woods. It was 



, TROUT FISHING — MITCHELL. 47 

a Ijot day as we emerged from the woods on to the 
shore of Long Lake, and the sun came down with 
such scorching power that I marked Friday, July 
10th, in my calendar, to see if the temperature was 
correspondingly high in New York and the settle- 
ments. Well, this burning day I rode in a lumber 
wagon through the woods over roots and rocks seven 
miles, walked seven miles, and rowed a boat eleven 
miles — a good day's work for an invalid fresh from 
the doctor's hands. Along the road you would see 
trees at certain intervals, marked H, which, after 
vainly attempting to account for, I finally inquired 
the reason of. *' Oh, it means Highway^'" was the 
reply. This rather comical way, however, of inform- 
ing one he was on the highway, is not, after all, or 
rather was not, without its use. When the first rude 
path was cut, a man would not have deemed himself 
on a public road if he had not been told of it in some 
wa3^ As we passed along, we would come upon fires 
built over a huge rock in the middle of the track, 
compelling us to take a semicircle in the woods. 
On inquiring the cause of this to me singular pro- 
cedure, I was told that m.en were working on the 
road, and in the absence of drills, took this method 
of breaking the rocks to pieces. Being sandstone, 
the fire slowly crunrbled them apart, so that the crow- 
bar or handspike could remove them. I thought of 
Hannibal, and his fire and vinegar on the rocks of 
the San Bernard pass, and men seemed going back 
to their primitive state. Instead of cutting down 
the trees that stood in the way, they hewed off the 



48 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

roots, and then hitcliing a rope to the tops, pulled 
them over with oxen. And thus thej work and toil 
away here in the depths of the forest, all heedless of 
the great world without. How strange it seems, to 
behold men thus occupied, living contentedly, fifty 
miles from a post-office or village, and hear their 
inquiries about the war with Mexico, asking of events 
that had been quite forgotten in New York! They 
have their ambition, but its object is a few acres of 
w^ell-cultivated land, or the reputation of a good 
hunter; and they have their troubles, but they are 
born and die in the bosom of the forest. Men toiling 
for a bare subsistence, for the coarsest fare, poorest 
dwellings, and meager comforts of civilized life, al- 
ways set me musing, and this veiled life of ours grows 
still more mysterious, and man, godlike, immortal 
man, strangely like a mere animal. 

But on the broad lake, before a brisk breeze, and 
bending to my oars, these thoughts soon left me. 
The tiny waves rocked our cockle-shell of a boat like 
a plaything amid the bubbles, while a bush I had 
erected in the centre made it fairly foam through the 
water as the swift blast came down through the 
mountain gorges. Far away to the southwest, the 
golden sky shone glorious, and over its illuminated 
depths the fragmentary clouds went trooping as if 
joyous with life, ^while to the northwest, towards 
which our frail craft was driving, the heavens were 
black as midnight, and the retiring storm-cloud 
looked dark and fierce as wrath, retreating though 
still unconquered. The sun was hastening to the 



TROUT FISHING — MITCHELL. 49 

ridge of the skj-s^king mountains, and his depart- 
ing beams threw in still deeper contrast the under 
side of the clouds. But still the waves kept dancing 
in the light, as if determined not to be frowned out 
of their frolic, and it was with no little pleasure I 
watched the awful-looking mass that covered the 
northern heavens yield to the glorious, balmy, yet 
swift careering breeze that came sweeping the heart 
of the lake. I was after Slitchell, the Indian, whom 
I had formerly tal^en with me, and who, I was told, 
was on a fishing excursion, wdth his father and sister 
and some others, in Cold River. At length, just as 
we were glancing away from the head of a beautiful 
island, I saw a boat coming towards us impelled 
against the wind by the steady strokes of a powerful 
rower. As it shot near, I beheld the swarthy and 
benevolent face of Mitchell. He lay on his oars 
scarcely a minute to hear my salutation and my pro- 
position, when he pointed to a deep bay a mile dis- 
tant, around which stretched a white line of sand, 
and again bent to his oars. I followed after, for I 
knew there was his camp, and soon after our boats 
grated on the smooth beach, and we were sitting be- 
side a bark shanty and discussing our future plans. 
But those few barks piled against some poles were 
not enough to cover us, and soon every one was at 
work peeling spi^ce trees or picking hemlock boughs 
for our couch. The cloudless sun went proudly, nay, 
to me triumphantly, to his royal couch amid the 
mountain summits, and as twilight deepened over the 
wild landscape, our camp fire shot its cheerful flame 



50 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

heavenward, and we lay scattered around amid the 
trees in delightful indolence. Already my system 
began to rally in the presence of nature, and though 
a miserable invalid, with the bronchitis to boot, I felt 
that I could lay my head beneath the forest and sleep 
without a fear. 

Mitchell had caught some trout — right noble ones 
— and those, with the contents of our knapsacks, pro- 
mised us a noble supper. The trout were rolled in 
Indian meal, and fried in a little pan we had with 
us, except a few that were spitted on long sticks, 
that, with one end stuck in the ground, with the other 
held their tempting burdens above the smoke and 
flame. I split oif a new fresh chip for a plate on 
which I spread my delicious trout, with a piece of 
hot johnny-cake by his side, and, placing my back 
against a stump, held him with one hand, while my 
good hunting-knife peeled off his salmon-colored sides 
in most tempting, delicious morsels. I ate with an 
appetite and keen relish I had been a stranger to for 
months, and then asked Mitchell if we could not get 
a deer before going to bed. He said yes, if the wind 
went down so that we could float them. This float- 
ing deer I will describe in another place, for there 
was no stirring out to-night. The wrathful little 
swells came rushing furiously against the unoff'ending 
beach, and the tall tree-tops swayed to and fro and 
sighed in the blast, and our roughly-fanned fire threw 
its sparks in swift eddies heavenward, and all was 
wild, solemn, and almost fearful. No boat must 
leave the beach to-night, and, so carefully loading 



TROUT FISHING— MITCHELL. 51 

our rifles and setting them up against the trees, we 
began to prepare for our night's repose. Some with 
their heads under the bark shanty, their feet to the 
fire, others in the open forest, with their heads across 
a stick of wood, lay stretched their full lengths upon 
the earth. I lay down for awhile, but the wind that 
had increased at the going down of the sun now blew 
furiously, and crash went a tree in the forest, sound- 
ing for all the world like the dull report of distant 
cannon. I could not sleep, and so, rising from my 
couch of boughs, I went out and sat down on the 
ground, and looked and listened. The steady roar 
of the waves on the beach below mingled with the 
rush of the blast above, while the tall trees rocked 
and swung on every side, and flung out their long 
arms into the night, their leafy tresses streaming be- 
fore them, and groaned on their ancient foundations 
with a deep and steady sound that filled my heart 
with emotions at once solemn and fearful. Some- 
times I thought one of those gigantic forms must 
fall in the struggle and crush some of our company 
into the earth, and then again my soul would bow to 
the lordly music till that great primeval forest seemed 
one vast harp, their trunks and branches the mighty 
wires, and that strong blast the fierce and fearless 
hand that swept them. Now faint and far in the 
distance I could catch the coming anthem, till, swell- 
ing fuller and clearer in its rapid march, it at length 
went over me with a roar that was deafening, then 
died away, like a retiring wave, on the far tree tops. 
Sometimes my awakened imagination wotdd compare 



52 LETTERS FKOM THE BACKWOODS. 

the sound to a troop of horse whose steady tramp, at 
first low and indistinct, soon shook the earth with its 
tread, then suddenly and fiercely sweeping by, gra- 
dually lost itself in the distance. The steeds of the 
air were out, and their successive squadrons, as they 
went trampling over the bending tree tops, made the 
forest tremble. God seemed near, there in the soli- 
tude and night, and his voice seemed speaking to me. 
How calm the sleepers around me lay in the firelight, 
reposing as quietly amid this wild uproar as if naught 
but the dews were gently distilling, and yet how help- 
less they seemed in their slumbers ! God alone was 
their keeper, and I never felt more deeply the pro- 
tection of that parental hand than here at midnight. 

The moon at length arose on the darkness, and the 
wind lulled gradually into silence. I threw myself 
on the ground, and watched the bright orb as it slowly 
mounted the heavens, till finally weariness prevailed, 
and I slept. The crack of a rifle startled me from 
my repose before an hour had passed by, and I 
sprang to my feet. That was a rude waking to one 
not accustomed to a hunter's life, but nothing but a 
poor rabbit had suffered. One of the young men 
had shot him as he was stealiug around the camp fire, 
attracted by the food we had left scattered about. 

The welcome morning at length came, and a lit- 
tle after daylight we were afloat, steering for Cold 
River, in order to take some trout for breakfast. 



TROUTING. 63 



LETTER VIII. 

TROUTING— A DUCK PROTECTING HER YOUNG BY STRA- 
TAGEM — SABBATH IN THE FOREST. 

The morning broke clear and beautiful over our 
encampment, and two boats of us started for Cold 
River to take some trout for breakfast. The Indian 
and myself went ahead, hoping to surprise some deer 
feeding in the marshes, but were disappointed. Reach- 
ing the foot of the lake, we shot noiselessly down the 
Rackett River, till we came to a huge rock that rose 
out of the bed of the stream, when we turned off and 
began to ascend Cold River. This latter stream, for 
some distance, sends a noiseless current over a smooth 
and pebbly bed, while the water is almost as clear as 
the air above you. Everything on the bottom is as 
visible as if it were on the shores ; and when the sun 
is up, it is impossible to take a trout, though the stream 
is full of them. When we reached it, the surface was 
covered with foam bubbles, made by the constant 
springing of the trout after flies. They had absolute- 
ly churned it up, and for a while our hooks brought 
them to the surface fast; but we were too late. The 
sun, rising over the forest, shed such a flood of light 
on the water, and indeed throuffli it, to the very bot- 
6 



54 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

torn, that scarcely a fish could be coaxed from his- 
hiding-place. Our boats and ourselves threw strong 
shadows on the water, sufficient to frighten less wary 
fish than trout. We, however, took enough for break- 
fast, and started for home. By the way, is it not a 
little singular that fish should eat their own flesh? 
The first one we caught served as bait for the others. 
As we were returning, Mitchell left the main stream 
and entered a narrow and shallow channel, that, by 
making a circuitous route, reached the lake close be- 
side the river. Passing silently along, we roused up 
a brood of ducks among the reeds. The mother first 
took the alarm, and, seeing at a glance that she could 
not escape with her young, left them and fluttered 
out directly ahead of our boat. She then began to 
make a terrible ado, striking her wings on the water, 
and screaming, and darting backwards and forwards, 
as if dreadfully wounded and could be easily picked 
up with a little efl"ort. I instinctively raised my rifle 
to my shoulder; then, thinking the shot might frighten 
the deer we were after, I turned to Mitchell and in- 
quired if I should fire. "I guess I wouldn't," he 
replied ; "she has young ones." My gun dropped in 
a moment. I stood rebuked, not only by my own 
feelings, but by the Indian with me. I was shocked 
that this hunter, who had lived for so many years on 
the spoils of the forest, should teach me tenderness of 
feeling. That mother's voice found an echo in his heart, 
and he would not harm one feather of her plumage ; 
nor could the bribe be named that would then have 
induced me to strike the anxious, aff'ectionate creature. 



A DUCK PROTECTING HER YOUNG BY STRATAGEM. 55 

As I watched her thus sacrificing herself to save her, 
young, provoking the death-shot in order to draw 
attention from them, I wondered how I couhl for a 
single moment have wished to destroy her. I leaned 
over the boat and watched her movements for nearly 
half a mile. She would keep just ahead of us, sail- 
ing backwards and forwards, now striking her wings 
on the water, as if struggling with all her strength to 
fly, yet unable to rise, and now screaming out as if 
distressed to death at her perilous position, yet cun- 
ningly moving off in the mean time, so as to allure 
us after in order to increase the distance between us 
and her offspring. While we were near the nest, she 
swam almost under our bows; but, as we continued to 
advance, she grew more timorous, as if beginning to 
think a little more of herself. I could not blame her 
for this, for she had hitherto kept within reach of 
certain death if I had chosen to fire. But it was 
curious to see in what exact proportion her care for 
herself increased as the danger to her offspring 
lessened. She would rise and fly some distance, then 
alight in the water, and wait our approcyph. If she 
sailed out of sight a moment, she would wheel and 
look back, and even swim back, till she saw us follow- 
ing after, when she would move off again. The fool- 
ish thing really believed she was outwitting us, and, 
I have no doubt, had many self-complacent reflections 
on the ease with which ducks could humbug human 
beings. After we had proceeded in this way about 
half a mile, she rose from the water, and, striking the 
Rackett River, sped back by a circular sweep to her 



66 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

young. As her form disappeared round a bend of 
the stream, I could not help murmuring, '' Heaven 
speed thee, anxious mother !" Ah, what a chattering 
liiere was amid the reeds when her shadow darkened 
over the hiding-place, and she folded her wings amid 
her offspring, and listened with matronly dignity to 
the story each one had to tell ! 

All this, however, was speedily forgotten as we 
emerged on the lake, whose bosom was swept by a 
strong wind, against which we were compelled to force 
our tiny skiffs as we pulled for our camp. It was 
now nine o'clock, and I never waited with so much 
impatience for a meal as I did for the johnny-cake 
that was slowly roasting amid the ashes. We had 
but one pan, and until the cake was done we could 
not cook our trout, and so, stretched under the shadow 
of a huge stump, with my chip-plate in my hand, I 
lay and watched the crackling flames with all the 
philosophy I could muster. At length everything 
was ready, and with a piece of johnny-cake on a chip, 
and a trout on top of that, I slashed away with an 
appetite ar\^ epicure would give a small fortune to 
possess. After breakfast, we had no dishes or forks 
to clean, but, throwing them both away, wiped our 
knives on a chip, and in a moment were ready for a 
start. It was Saturday, and the heavens, which had 
been so clear the night before, now began to gather 
blackness, and the burdened wind moaned through 
the forest, or went sobbing over the lake, that was 
every moment fretting itself into greater excitement, 
and everything betokened a gloomy and tempestuous 



SABBATH IN THE FOREST. 57 

day. We were fourteen miles from a human habita- 
tion, and I expected that day to have gone thirty 
miles further into the forest and spent the Sabbath ; 
but the storm that was approaching made the shelter 
of a log-cabin seem too inviting, and I changed my 
mind. To row fourteen miles against a head wind 
and sea was no child's play, and for one I resolved 
not to do it. So, making a bargain with Mitchell, 
the Indian, I wrapped my oil- skin cape about me, and 
laying my rifle-across my lap, ensconced myself in 
the stern of the boat, and made up my mind to a 
drencher. The black clouds came rushing over the ' 
huge black mountains, and the rain began to fall in 
torrents. Now hugging the shore to escape the blast, 
and now sailing under the lee of an island, we crawled 
along until at length, late in the afternoon, we found 
ourselves comfortably housed. 

The log hut of Mitchell, in which I spent the Sab- 
bath, was in the centre of two or three acres of cleared 
land ; all the rest was forest. During the day, I was 
struck with the sense of propriety and delicacy of 
feeling shown by him. Sunday must have been a 
weary day to him ; yet he engaged in no sports, per- 
formed no work, that I saw, inappropriate to it. In 
the afternoon, however, he took down his violin, and 
for a moment I felt pained, expecting such music as 
would distress one to hear on the Sabbath. He, how- 
ever, refrained from all those tunes I knew he pre- 
ferred, and played only sacred hymns, most of them 
Methodist ones. I could not imagine where he had 
learned them ; but this silent respect to my feelings 
6* 



58 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

made me love him at once, and, as I hummed them 
over with him, I conceived a respect for him I shall 
never lose.' 

The day went out in storms, and, as Hay down that 
night on my rough couch, I could hardly believe I 
was in the same State of which New York was the 
capital, whose hundred spires pierced the heavens. 

I have been thus particular, and mean to be in fu- 
ture, because in no other way can you get a correct 
idea of the daily life one is compelled to lead who 
would penetrate these untrodden wilds of the Empire 
State. It is nonsense to talk of dignity and the im- 
propriety of a man's carrying a rifle and fishing tackle, 
and spending his time in shooting deer and catching 
trout. Such folly is becoming to him only who sits 
on the piazza of a hotel at Saratoga Springs at the 
expense of twelve dollars a week for his health. I 
love nature and all things as God has made them. I 
love the freedom of the wilderness and the absence 
of conventional forms there. I love the long stretch 
through the forest on foot, and the thrilling, glorious 
prospect from some hoary mountain top. I feel my 
soul lift amid such scenes, and throw off the chain 
that has been rusting around it, and I think better of 
man and worse of his mad chase after straws and 
baubles. I love it, and I know it is better for me 
than the thronged city, and better for my wasted 
health and exhausted frame than "all the poppies and 
madrigoras of the world." 



LONG LAKE COLONY. 59 



LETTER IX. 

LONG LAKE COLONY — A LOON — CROTCHET LAKE. 

Taking Mitchell with me, we embarked on Mon- 
day in his birch bark canoe for Crotchet and Rackett 
Lakes. Paddling leisurely up Long Lake, I was 
struck with the desolate appearance of the settlement. 
Scarcely an improvement had been made since I was 
last here, while some clearings had been left to go 
back to their original wildness. Disappointed pur- 
chasers, lured by extravagant statements, had given 
up •in despondency, and left; and I was forcibly 
reminded, as I passed along, of a remark Dr. Todd 
made me last summer. Speaking of his Long Lake 
Colony, I mentioned that its prospects were rather 
gloomy. " Yes," said he ; " the best people are all 
going away ; in a short time, there will be nobody left 
but hunters. It won't be settled for a century." It 
must have been with extreme regret he was forced to 
come to this conclusion, after having taken so much 
interest in it, and appealed so much to the sympathy 
of the public, and obtained so much money only to be 
thrown away. " It won't be settled for a century !" 
Time enough yet, then, to arouse attention to this 
section of our country. I have no doubt his latter 



60 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

conclusions are more just and sound than his former 
ones, though I think them somewhat erroneous. I 
believe this wilderness will be encroached upon in less 
time than that. Perhaps sixty or seventy years will 
be sufiBcient to give us so crowded a population as to 
force settlements into this desolate interior of the 
State. Still I agree with him that the prospects are 
gloomy. The church, too, has gone down ; not a soli- 
tary conversion from all the labor expended here. 
Still, this was to be expected. A church formed of 
such materials ought to go to pieces. Even the last 
remaining member, certainly not the most enlightened 
or circumspect Christian I have ever met, told me 
that it was no more than he expected — that no one 
there supposed the men would "hold out." 

But our. light canoe soon left the last clearing; and 
curving round the shore, we shot into the Rackett or 
Racquette River, and entered the bosom of the forest. 
As we left the lake, I saw a loon some distance up 
the inlet, evidently anxious to get out once more into 
open water. These birds (about the size of a goose), 
you know, cannot rise from the water except by a 
long effort and against a strong damp wind, and de- 
pend for safety on diving and swimming under water. 
At the approach of danger, they go under like a duck, 
and when you next see them, they are perhaps sixty 
rods distant, and beyond the reach of your bullet. If 
cornered in a small body of water, they will sit and 
watch your motions with a keenness and certainty 
that are wonderful, and dodge the flash of a percussion 
lock gun all day long. The moment they see the 



A LOON. 61 

blaze from the muzzle they dive, and the bullet, if 
well aimed, will strike the water exactly where they 
sat. I have shot at them again and again, with a 
dead rest, and those watching would see the ball each 
time strike directly in the hollow made by the wake 
of the water above the creature's back. There is no 
killing them except by firing at them when they are 
not expecting it, and then their neck and head are 
the only vulnerable points. They sit so deep in the 
water, and the quills on their backs are so hard and 
compact that a ball seems to make no impression on 
them. At least, I h'ave never seen one killed by being 
shot through the body. Such are the me-ans of self- 
preservation possessed by this curious bird, whose 
wild and shrill and lonely cry on the water at mid- 
night is one of the most melancholy sounds I ever 
heard in the forest. 

This loon, of which I was just noAV speaking, I 
wished very much to kill, in order to carry his skin 
to New York with me, and so, after firing at him in 
vain, I asked Mitchell if we could not, both of us 
together, manage to take him. He told me to land 
him where the channel was narrow that entered Long 
Lake, and paddle along towards where the loon was, 
and drive him out. As I. approached him, he dived, 
and, knowing that he would make straight for the 
lake, I watched the whole line of his progress with 
the utmost care ; but, though my range took in nearly 
the third of a mile, I never saw him again. After a 
while, I heard the crack of a rifle around the bend of 
the shore, and hastening there, I found Mitchell load- 



62 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

ing his gun. He said the loon just raised his head 
above water, opposite where he stood, but he missed 
him, an^ the frightened bird did not appear again 
till it rose far out in the lake. 

I mention this circumstance merely to show the 
habits of this, to me, most singular bird of our north- 
ern waters. I forgot to say that, although it cannot 
rise from the water except with great difficulty, and 
never attempts to escape danger, neither can it walk 
on the shore. Diving is about the only gift it pos- 
sesses, which it uses, I must say, with great ability 
and success. 

Paddling up Rackett River, we at length came to 
Buttermilk Falls, around which we were compelled to 
carry our canoes. So in another place we were com- 
pelled to carry them two miles, around rapids, 
through the woods. Nothing can be more comical 
and out of the way than a party thus passing through 
the forest. First, a yoke is placed across the guide's 
neck, on which the boat is placed bottom side up, 
covering the poor fellow down to the shoulders, and 
sticking out fore and aft over the biped below in such 
a way as to make him appear half-human, half-supei;- 
natural, or rather un-natuYixl. But it was no joke 
to me to carry my part of the freight. Two rifles, 
one overcoat, one tea-pot, one lantern, one basin, 
and a piece of pork, were my portion. Sometimes 
I had a change, namely, two oars and a paddle, 
balanced by a tin pail, in place of a rifle. Thus 
equipped, I would press on for a while, and then stop 
to see the procession — each poor fellow staggering 



CROTCHET LAKE. 63 

under the weight he bore, while in the long intervals 
appeared the two inverted boats, walking through the 
woods on two human legs in the most surprising man- 
ner imaginable. Though tired and fagged out, I 
could not refrain from frequent outbursts of laughter 
that made the forest ring again. But there was no 
other way of getting along, and each one had to be- 
come a beast of burden. It was a relief to launch 
again ; and when at last we struck the river just after 
it leaves Crotchet Lake, and gazed on the beautiful 
sheet of water that was rolling and sparkling in the 
sunlight ahead, an involuntary shout burst from the 
party. A flock of wild ducks, scared at the sound, 
made the water foam as they rose at our feet and 
sped away. Stemming the rapid waters with our 
light prows, we were soon afloat on the bosom of the 
lake. The wind was blowing directly in our teeth, 
making the miniature waves leap and dance around 
us as if welcoming us to their home. A white gull 
rose from a rock at our side — a fish-hawk screamed 
around her huge nest on a lofty pine-tree on the 
shore, as she wheeled and circled above her offspring 
— -a raven croaked overhead — the cry of loons arose 
in the distance — and all was wild yet beautiful. The 
sun was stooping to his glorious bed amid the purple 
mountains, whose sea of summits was calmly sleep- 
ing against the golden heavens — the cool breeze 
stirred a world of foliage on our right — green islands, 
beautiful as Elysian fields, rose out of the water as 
we advanced — the sparkling waves rolled merrily 
under as bright a sky as ever bent over the earth — 



64 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

and for a moment I seemed to have been transported 
into a new world. I never was more struck by a 
scene in my life. Its utter wildness, spread out there 
where the axe of civilization has never struck a blow 
— the evening — the sunset — the deep purple of the 
mountains — the silence and solitude of the shores, and 
the cry of birds in the distance, combined to render it 
one of enchantment to me. My feelings were more 
excited, perhaps, by the consciousness that we were 
without any definite object before us — no place of 
rest, but sailing along looking out for some good 
point af land on which to pitch our camp. 

Mitchell made no replies to our inquiries, but kept 
paddling along among the lily pads until he made for 
a point near the Rackett River, and mooring our boats 
to the shore, began to prepare for the night. 



SHOOTING A DEER. 65 



LETTER X. 

SHOOTING A DEER — SUPPER IN THE WOODS — MODERN 
• SENTIMENTALISTS — THE INFLUENCE OF NATURE. 

After we had pitched (not our tent, but) our shan- 
ty, we began to cast about for supper. I told Mitchell 
I could not think of eating a piece of salt pork for 
supper, and we must get some trout. So, rigging 
our lines on poles, we cut on the shores of the lake, 
and, taking our rifles with us, we jumped into our 
bark canoe, and pushed for some rapids in the Rack- 
ett River, where it entered Crotchet Lake. As we 
were paddling carefully along the edge of a marsh 
that put out into the water, Mitchell, w^ho was at the 
stern, suddenly exclaimed, "Hist! I see the head of 
a deer coming down to feed." I sometimes thought 
he could smell a deer, for he would often say he saw 
one before both its ears had fairly emerged from the 
bushes. ''Shoot him," said he to me. "I can't," I 
replied; "I am too tired: shoot him yourself." So, 
stooping my head to let the bullet pass over me, I 
watched him as he took aim ; «,nd it was a sight 
worth seeing. The careless, indolent manner so na- 
tural to him had disappeared as if by magic, and he 
stood up in the stern of the boat as straight as his 
7 



(j6 letters from the backwoods. 

own rifle, -while his dark eye glanced like an eagle's. 
Every nerve in him seemed to have been suddenly 
touched by an electric spark, and as he now stooped to 
elude the watchfulness of the deer, and now again stood 
erect with his rifle raised to his shoulder, he was one of 
the most picturesque objects I ever saw. The timorous 
animal was feeding on the marsh, and ever and anon 
lifted her head as if she scented danger in the air. 
Then Mitchell's would drop like a flash, and gently 
lift again as the deer returned to her feed. Slie was 
about twenty rods off, and now stood fairly exposed 
amid the grass. It was a long shot for arm's length, 
and a tottlish boat to stand in, but he resolved to try 
it. Slowly bringing his rifle to his face, he stood 
for a moment as motionless as a pillar of marble, 
while his gun seemed suddenly to have frozen in its 
place, so still and steady did it lie in his bronze 
hand. A flash — a quick sharp report, and the noble 
deer bounded several feet into the air, then wheeled 
and sprang into the forest. He had shot directly 
over my head, and the mad bound of the animal told 
too well that the unerring bullet had struck near the 
life. Rowing hastily to the spot, we could find no 
traces of the deer ; but Mitchell, with his eye bent on 
the ground, paced backward and forward without 
saying a word. At length he stopped, and, peering 
down amid the long grass, said, "Here is blood." 
How he discovered it is a perfect mystery to me, for 
the grass was a foot long and very thick, while the 
blood spot was but a drop which had fallen on the 
roots of a single blade. I never should have noticed 



SHOOTING A DEER. 67 

it, and if I had, should have considered it a mere 
discoloration of the leaf, fac- similes of which occurred 
at every step. The keen hawk eye of the Indian 
hunter, however, could not be deceived, and he sim- 
ply remarked, "He is hit deep or he would have bled 
freer," and struck on the trail. But this baffled even 
the Indian, for the marsh was covered with deer 
tracks, and the bushes into which the wounded one 
had sprung were a perfect matting of laurels and 
low shrubs. There was no more blood to be found, 
and we were perfectly at fault in our search. At 
length, tired and disappointed, I returned to the boat 
and stood waiting the return of Mitchell, when the 
sharp crack of his rifle again rang through the forest, 
followed soon after by a shrill whistle. I knew then 
that a deer had fallen, and hastened to the spot. 
There lay the beautiful creature stretched on the 
moss, with the life-blood welling from her throat, and 
over the body, watching, stood Mitchell leaning on 
his rifle. Unable to find the trail, he had made a 
shrewd guess as to the course the animal had taken, 
and, making a circuit, finally came upon her, lain 
down to die. At his approach, she sprang to her 
feet, ran a few rods, fell again exhausted, when the 
deadly aim of Mitchell planted a bullet directly back 
of her ear, and her career was ended. 

Satisfied with our game, we gave up our fishing, 
and, dragging the body to the boat, put back to our 
camp. The rest of our company stood on the shore 
waiting our return. They had heard the shots, and 
were expecting the spoils. Some, no doubt, will 



68 LETTERS EROM THE BACKWOODS. 

think this very cruel, and congratulate themselves on 
their kinder natures. I have seen such people, and 
heard them expend whole sentences of sentimentality 
upon the hardheartedness that could take the life of 
such an innocent creature, who very coolly wrung 
the necks of chickens every night for their breakfast, 
and devoured with great gusto the shoulder of a lamb 
for dinner. They slay without remorse the most 
harmless, trusting creatures that haunt their meadows, 
or sport upon their lawns, and take food from their 
hands, and yet are shocked at the idea of killing a 
deer or shooting a wild pigeon. They kill God's 
creatures, not from necessity, but to gratify their 
palates and minister to their luxurious tastes. But 
if any one supposes we shot this noble doe for sport, 
he must havo a very vague idea of the toils we had 
endured that day, or of our keen appetites. A man 
of great sentimentality might eat boiled eggs and 
toast with his coffee for breakfast, rather than sanc- 
tion the death of an animal by partaking of flesh. I 
say he might do it, though I have never seen an in- 
stance of such great self-denial; but I doubt whether, 
if he were a day's journey from a human habitation, 
hungry and tired, with the prospect of nothing but a 
piece of salt pork, toasted on the end of a stick for 
supper and breakfast, he would hesitate to eat a veni- 
son steak. But I like to have forgotten. The pork, too, 
was the flesh of an animal, and it would be difiicult 
to convince a hog that he had not as good a right to 
life as a deer. At all events, we enjoyed the venison, 
though perhaps the sentimentalist might say we wero 



MODERN SENTIMENTALISTS. ' 69 

punished in the end, for it made us all outrageously 
sick. We either cooked it too soon (for in twenty 
minutes from the time the deer fell, a part of her 
was roasting) ; or we ate it too rare (for we were 
too hungry to wait till it was perfectly done); or we 
ate too much (for we were hungry as famished 
wolves); or probably did all three things together, 
which quite upset me. 

But after the things {i. e. the chips) were cleared 
away, I stretched myself on the ground under a tree 
whose dark trunk shone in the light of the cheerful 
fire, and began to muse on the day that had passed. 
How is it that a scene of quiet beauty makes so much 
deeper an impression than a startling one ? The 
glorious sunset I had witnessed on that sweet lake — 
the curving and forest-mantled shores-^-the green 
islands — the mellow mountains, all combined to make 
a scene of surpassing loveliness ; and now, as I lay 
and watched the stars coming out one after another, 
and twinkling down on me through the tree tops, all 
that beauty came back on me with strange power. 
The gloomy gorge and savage precipice, or the sud- 
den storm, seem to excite the surface only of one's 
feelings, while the sweet vale, with its cottages and 
herds and evening bells, blends itself with our very 
thoughts and emotions, forming a part of our after 
existence. Such a scene sinks away into the heart 
like a gentle rain into the earth, while a rougher, 
nay, sublimer one, comes and goes like a sudden 
shower. I do not know how it is that the gentler 
influence should be the deeper and more lasting, but 
7* 



70 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

SO it is. The still small voice of nature is more im- 
pressive than her loudest thunder. Of all the scene- 
ry in the Alps, and there is no grander on the earth, 
nothing is so plainly daguerreotyped on my heart as 
two or three lovely valleys I saw. • Those heaven- 
piercing summits, and precipices of ice, and awfully 
savage gorges, and fearful passes, are like a grand 
but indistinct vision onrmy memory; while those vales, 
with their carpets of green sward, and gentle rivulets, 
and perfect repose, have become a part of my life. 
In moments of high excitement or turbulent grief, 
they rise before me with their gentle aspect and quiet 
beauty, hushing the storm into repose, and subduing 
the spirit like a sensible presence. Oh, how I love 
nature ! She has ten thousand voices even in her si- 
lence, and in all her changes goes only from beauty 
to beauty. And when she speaks aloud, and the 
music of running waters — the organ note of the wind 
amid the pine-tree tops — the rippling of waves — 
the song of birds, and the hum of insects, fall on 
the ear, soul and sense are ravished. How is it that 
even good men have come to think so little of nature, 
as if to love her and seek her haunts and companion- 
ship were a waste of time? I have been astonished 
at the remarks sometimes made to me on my long 
jaunts in the woods, as if it were almost wicked to 
cast off the gravity of one's profession, and wander 
like a child amid the beauty which God has spread 
out with such a lavish hand over the earth. Why, I 
should as soon think of feeling reproved for gazing 
on the midnight heavens gorgeous with stars, and 



THE INFLUENCE OF NATURE. 71 

fearful with its mysterious floating worlds. I believe 
that every man degenerates without frequent commu- 
nion with nature. It is one of the open books of 
God, and more replete with instruction than anything 
ever penned by man. A single tree standing alone, and 
waving all day long its green crown in the summer 
wind, is to me fuller of meaning and instruction than 
the crowded mart or gorgeously-built city. 

But Mitchell has arisen from his couch of leaves, 
where he has been reclining silent and thoughtful as 
his race, and is looking up to the sky and out upon 
the lake, and I know something is afoot. 



72 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 



LETTER XI. 

FLOATING DEER — A NIGHT EXCURSION — MORNING IN 
THE WOODS. 

As I said in my last, Mitchell looked up to the sky 
and out upon the lake a moment, and then, in that 
quiet way so characteristic of his race, said, " If you 
want to go after a deer, it is time we started." It 
took but five minutes to load my rifle, put on my over- 
coat, and announce myself ready. Lifting our bark 
canoe softly from the rocks, we launched it on the still 
water, and, stepping carefully in, pushed off. Pre- 
viously, however, Mitchell requested me to try one of 
my matches, to see if the damp had affected them. 

You know that deer-floating amid backwoodsmen 
is very like deer-stalking in Scotland. In the warm 
summer months, especially in June, the deer come 
down from the mountains at night to feed on the 
marshes that line the shores of the lakes and rivers. 
While they are thus feeding, if you pass along with- 
out making a noise, you can hear them as they step 
about in the edge of the water, or snort as they scent 
approaching danger. The moment you become aware 
of the proximity of one, strike a light and fix it firmly 
in the bow of your boat, or in a lantern on your head, 



FLOATING DEER. 73 

and advance cautiously. The deer, attracted by the 
flame, stops and gazes intently upon it. If he hears 
no sound, he will not stir till you advance close to him. 
At first you catch only the sight of his two eyes, burn- 
ing like fireballs in the gloom ; but as you approach 
nearer, the light is thrown on his red flanks, and he 
stands revealed in all his beautiful proportions be- 
fore you. The candle serves, at the same time, to dis- 
tinguish the animal, and give you a clear view of the 
sights along your gun-barrel ; and he must be a poor 
shot who misses at five rods distance. The night must 
be dark and still, and no moon rise over the water. 

This night, the only spot good for deer had been 
so trampled over by us, before dark, that they would 
not come out upon it, and we floated on for a long 
time without hearing anything. I never before saw 
such an exhibition of the stealthy movements of an 
Indian. The lake was as still and smooth as a polished 
mirror, and our frail canoe floated over it as if im- 
pelled by an invisible hand. I knelt at the bow with 
my rifle before me, while Mitchell sat in the stern 
as still as a statue, yet urging the boat on by some 
strange movement of the paddle, which I tried in vain 
to comprehend. He did not even make a ripple on 
the water, and I could tell we were moving only by 
marking the shadow of trees we crossed, -or the stars 
we passed over. Though straining every nerve to 
catch a sound, I never once heard the stroke of his 
paddle. It was the most mysterious ride I ever took. 
We entered the mouth of a river whose shores were 
dark with the sombre fir-trees, while ever and anon 



74 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

would come more clearly on the ear' the roar of a 
distant waterfall. It was so dark I could make 
out nothing distinctly on shore ; and the island-like 
tufts that here and there rose from the water, the 
little bays and rocky points we passed, assumed the 
most grotesque shapes to my fancy, till I had all the 
feelings of one suddenly transported to a fairy land. 
Now the silent boat would cross the shadow of a lofty 
pine-tree that lay dark and calm in the water below, 
and now sail over a bright constellation that spar- 
kled in our path ; while the scream of a far-off loon 
came ringing like a spirit's cry through the gloom. 
Oh, how bright lay the sky, with its sapphire floor be- 
neath us ! and how black was the fringe of shadow 
that encroached on its beauty, and yet added to it by 
contrast! The silent night around me, the strange- 
ness of the place, and the far removal from human 
habitations, were enough in themselves; but the dim, 
impalpable objects on shore, just distinct enough to 
confuse the senses, added tenfold mystery to the 
scene. I seemed moving through a boundless world 
of shadows, with nothing clear and natural but the 
bright constellations below me. 

Thus we passed on for a mile, without a whisper or 
sign having passed between us. At length the canoe 
entered what seemed at first a deep bay, but soon 
changed to the mouth of a gloomy cavern. I leaned 
forward, striving in vain to make out the misshapen 
objects before me; but the more I looked, the more 
confused I grew, while, to add to my bewilderment, 
suddenly the dim outlines I was struggling to make 



A NIGHT EXCURSION. 75 

out began to vanish, as if melting away in tlie dark- 
ness. At first, I thought the whole had been a struc- 
ture of mist, and was dissolving in my sight; but, cast- 
ing my eyes beneath me, I saw we were receding 
over the stars. Then I understood it all. Mitchell, 
without making a sound, had drawn the boat slowly 
backwards, causing the objects before me to fade thus 
strangely from my sight. He knew the ground per- 
fectly well, and could enter every bay and inlet as 
accurately as in broad daylight. 

Pursuing our way up the channel, I was at length 
startled by a low " hist!" The next moment I heard 
the tread of a deer on the shore, and the light canoe 
darted through the water till I could hear the low 
ripple of the water around the bow. " Light up !" 
said Mitchell in a whisper. As quietly as possible, I 
kindled a match, and lighting a candle, put it in a 
lantern made to fit the head like a hat, and clapping 
it in the place of my cap, cocked my rifle and leaned 
forward. The bright flame flared out upon the sur- 
rounding gloom, and all was hush as death. But as 
we advanced towards where the deer was standing, 
the boat suddenly struck the dry limbs of a spruce 
tree that had fallen in the water. Snap, snap went 
the brittle twigs, one of them piercing our bark canoe. 
We backed out of the dilemma as quick as possible ; 
but the sound had alarmed the deer, and I could hear 
his long bounds as he cleared the bank and made off 
into the forest. 

After cruising about a little while longer, we put 
back and crossed the lake to a deep bay on the far- 



76 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

ther side. But the moon now began to show her silver 
disk over the fir-trees, and our last remaining chance 
was to find a deer in the bay before the silver orb 
should climb the lofty pines that folded it in. But in 
this, too, we were disappointed; and the unclouded 
light now flooding lake and forest, we turned wearily 
towards our camp-fire, that was blazing cheerfully 
amid the trees on the farther shore. Just then a 
merry laugh came floating over the water from our 
companions there, breaking the silence which had en- 
chained us, and for the first time we spoke. My limbs 
were almost paralyzed, from having been kept so long 
in one position, and I was sick and weary. Still I 
would not have missed that mysterious boat ride, and 
the strange sensations it had awakened, to have been 
saved from thrice the inconvenience it had occasioned 
me. It was one of those new things in this stereo- 
typed life of ours, imparting new experiences, and 
giving one, as it were, a deeper insight into his own 
soul. 

At length we stretched ourselves upon the boughs, 
and were soon fast asleep. I awoke, however, about 
midnight, and found our fire reduced to a few embers, 
while the rain was coming down as if that were its 
sole business for the night. It is gloomy in the woods 
without a fire; and I never seem so companionless as 
when in the still midnight I awake and find nothing 
but the dark forest about me, cheered by no light. A 
bright crackling flame seems like a living thing, keep- 
ing awake on purpose to watch over you. 

Leaving my companions, whose heavy breathings 



MORNING IN THE WOODS. 77 

told how profound were their slumbers, I sallied out 
in search of fuel. But there was nothing but green 
fir-trees, that would not burn, to be found; and, after 
striking mj axe into several, and getting mj lower 
extremities thoroughly wet, I returned and lay down 
again, and slept till morning. With the first dawn, I 
was up, and, taking the Indian's canoe, pushed off in 
search of a deer. The heavy fog lay in masses upon 
the water, and the damp morning was still and quiet 
as the night that had passed. I floated about till the 
sun rose over the mountains, turning the lake into a 
sheet of gold, and sending the mist in spiral wreaths 
skyward, and then slowly paddled my way back to 
camp. As I was thus floating tranquilly along over 
the water, I heard, far up the lake, where it lost itself 
in the mountains, two distinct and heavy reports like 
the discharge of fire-arms. Who could be in that 
solitude besides ourselves ? was the first inquiry. I 
mentioned the circumstance when I reached the camp, 
and found that my companions, who had been busy 
in preparing breakfast, had also heard the reports. 
Mitchell, just then returning from an expedition after 
a fish-hawk, which he brought back with him, heard 
them also, and very quietly remarked they were 
not rifle shots. His quick ear never deceived him. 
" What, then, were they?" I inquired. " Trees," he 
replied. "But," said I, " there is not a breath of air 
this morning, while it blew very hard yesterday after- 
noon." "They always fall," he replied, "before a 
storm. It will storm by to-morrow." There was some- 
8 



78 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS, 

thing sad in thinking of those two trees thus falling 
all alone on a still and beautiful morning, foretelling 
a coming tempest. Sombre omens these, and myste- 
rious, as becomes the untrodden forest. 

Mitchell had shot an immense fish-hawk, breaking 
only the tip of its wing, so as to prevent it from 
flying. He brought it and set it down before the fire, 
when the fearless bird drew himself proudly up and 
steadily faced us down, without attempting to run 
away. His savage eye betokened no fear, and when 
any one of us approached him, his leg would be lifted 
and his talons expanded ready to strike. I was never 
so struck with the boldness of a bird in my life. At 
length Mitchell caught him and placed him on a rock 
by the edge of the lake. For a moment the noble bird 
forgot his wound, and, spreading his broad wings, 
leaped from his resting-place. But the broken pinion 
refused to carry him heavenward, and he fell heavily 
in the water. I saw Mitchell bring his rifle to his 
shoulder, and the next moment a bullet crushed 
through the head of the poor creature, and its sufi'er- 
ings w^ere over. 

Such are the incidents of a life in the woods, and 
thus do the days and nights pass — not without mean- 
ing or instruction. Not merely the physical man is 
strengthened, but the intellectual also, by these long 
furloughs from close application, and this intimate 
companionship with nature. A man cannot move in 
the forest without thinking of God, for all that meets 
his eye is just as it left his mighty hand. The old 



MORNING IN THE WOODS. 79 

forest, as it nods to the passing wind, speaks of him; 
the still mountain points towards his dwelling-place, 
and the calm lake reflects his sky of stars and sun- 
shine. The glorious sunset and the blushing dawn, 
the gorgeous midnight and the noonday splendor, 
mean more in these solitudes than in the crowded 
city. Indeed, they look differently—- they are different. 



80 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 



LETTER XII. 

LOST IN THE WOODS — AN OLD INDIAN AND HIS DAUGH- 
TER — MITCHELL — ADIRONDAC IRON WORKS. 

In the Woods, August. 

It was with weary forms and subdued hearts we 
turned the prows of our boats down the lake, and left 
the place of our encampment, probably for ever. No 
one who has not traveled in the woods can appreciate 
the feelings of regret with which one leaves the spot 
where he has pitched his tent only for a single day 
or night. The half-extinguished firebrands scattered 
around, the broken sticks that for the time seemed 
valuable as silver forks, and the deserted shanty, all 
have a desolate appearance, and it seems like forsak- 
ing trusty friends to leave them there in the forest 
alone. 

The morning was sombre and the wind fresh as we 
pulled down the lake and again entered the narrow* 
river that pierced so adventurously the dark bosom of 
the forest. The fatiguing task of carr^ung our boats 
was performed over again, with the additional burden 
of the deer we had but partially consumed. At one 
carrying-place, P. took two rifles and an overcoat as 
his part of the freight, and started off in advance. 



LOST IN THE WOODS. 81 

We were each of us too much engaged with our own 
affairs to notice the direction he took, but supposing, 
of course, he was ahead, pushed on. But as we came 
to the next launching-place, he was nowhere to be 
found. "He has gone on, I guess," said one, "to 
the next carrying-place." We shouted, but the echo 
of our own voices was the only reply the boundless 
forest sent back, and one was dispatched ahead to 
ascertain whether our conjecture was true. The re- 
port was soon brought back that P. was nowhere to 
be found. I, by this time, began to feel somewhat 
alarmed, for the lost one was my brother, and, taking 
Mitchell with me, hastene'd back towards the spot 
where he had parted from us. I shouted aloud, but 
the deep waterfall drowned my voice, and its sullen 
roar seemed mocking my anxious halloo. I then 
fired my rifle, but the sharp report was followed only 
by its own echo. Mitchell then discharged his, and, 
after waiting anxiously awhile, we heard a shot far 
up the river. Soon after, "bang — bang" went two 
more guns in the same direction. The poor fellow 
had heard our shot, and, fearing we might not hear 
his in return and so take a wrong direction, just stood 
and loaded and fired as fast as he could. When we 
found him, he was pale as marble, and looked like 
one who had been in a state of perfect bewilderment. 
On leaving us, instead of going down stream, as he 
should have done, he had gone directly up. After 
awhile he came out on the bank of a strange river. 
As it was on the wrong side of him to be the one we 
had floated down, ho thought he must have crossed 

8* 



82 LETTEKS FROM TAe BACKWOODS. 

over to another stream, but finally concluded it would 
be the safest course to retrace his steps. This he was 
doing to the best of his ability when he heard our 
rifle shots. We scolded him for his stupidity in thus 
causing us alarm and delay, which he very coolly re- 
marked was neither very just nor sensible, and then 
trudged on. 

Towards night, B n and myself arrived with 

Mitchell at his hut, where we found his aged Indian 
father and young sister waiting his return. " Old 
Peter," as he is called, had come, with his daughter, 
a hundred and fifty miles in a bark canoe, to visit 
him. The old man, now over eighty years of age, 
shook with palsy, and was constantly muttering to 
himself in a language half-French half-Indian, while 
his daughter, scarce twenty years old, was silent as 
a statue. She was quite pretty, and her long hair, 
which fell over her shoulders, was not straight, like 
that of her race, but hung in wavy masses around her 
bronzed visage. She would speak to none, not even 
to answer a question, except to her father and brother. 
I tried in vain to make her say No or Yes. She would 
invariably turn to her father, and he would answer 
for her. This old man still roams the forest, and 
stays where night overtakes him. It was sad to look 
upon his once-powerful frame, now bowed and totter- 
ing, while his thick gray hair hung like a huge mat 
around his wrinkled and seamed visage. His tremu- 
lous hand and faded eye could no longer send the un- 
erring rifle ball to its mark, and he was compelled to 
rely on a rusty fowling-piece. Everything about him 



AN OLD INDIAN AND HIS DAUGHTER. 85 

was in keeping. Even his dog was a mixture of the 
wolf and dog, and was the quickest creature I ever 
saw move. Poor old man, he will scarcely stand 
another winter, I fear — and some lonely night, in the 
lonely forest, that dark-skinned maiden will see him 
die, far from human habitations ; and her feeble arm 
will carry his corpse many a weary mile, to rest 
among his friends. As I have seen her decked out 
with water-lilies, paddling that old man over the lake, 
I have sighed over her fate. She seems wrapped up 
in her father, and to have but one thought, one pur- 
pose of life — the guarding and nursing of her feeble 
parent. The night that sees her sitting alone by the 
camp-fire beside her dead parent will witness a grief 
as intense and desolate as ever visited a more cult;i- 
vated bosom. God help her in that dark hour. I 
can conceive of no sadder sight than that forsaken 
maiden, in some tempestuous night, sitting all alone 
in the heart of the boundless forest, holding the dead 
or dying head of her father, while the moaning winds 
sing his dirge, and the flickering fire sheds a ghastly 
light on the scene. Sorrow in the midst of a wilder- 
ness seems doubly desolate. 

How strong is habit. That old man cannot be per- 
suaded to sit down in peace beneath a quiet roof, mi- 
nistered to and cherished as his wants require, but still 
clings to his wandering life, and endures hunger, cold 
and fatigue, and wanders houseless and homeless. 
He still hunts, though his shot seldom strikes down a 
deer ; and he still treads the forest, though his trem- 
bling limbs but half fulfil their ofiice, and his aged 



84 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

shoulders groan under the burden of his light canoe. 
I saw him looking at a handful of specimens of birch 
bark he had collected, and was balancing which to 
choose as material for a new boat. He still looks 
forward to years of hunting and days of toil, when 
the barque of life is already touching those dark 
waters that roll away from this world and all that it 
contains. 

After spending a night with Mitchell, we bade him 
good-by, and started for the Adirondac Mountains, 
where it was necessary to have another guide. He 
rowed us across the lake, and accompanied us several 
miles on our way, as if loth to leave us. I gave him 
a canister of powder, a pocket compass, and a small 
spy-glass, to keep as mementos of me, and shook his 
honest hand with as much regret as I ever did that 
of a white man. I shall long remember him. He is a 
man of deeds and not of words — kind, gentle, delicate 
in his feelings, honest and true as steel. I would 
start on a journey of a thousand miles in the woods 
with him alone, without the slightest anxiety, although 
I was burdened down with money. I never lay down 
beside a trustier heart than his, and never slept 
sounder than I have with one arm thrown across his 
brawny chest. 

We had started in the morning for a clearing be- 
tween twenty and thirty miles distant, but after we 
had performed fourteen miles of it, and found our- 
selves beneath the roof of a comfortable log-house, we 
concluded to stay over night. The next morning, 
bright and early, we resumed our march, and at noon 



ADIRONDAC IRON WORKS. • 85 

reached this solitary clearing which overlooks the 
whole wikl, gigantic and broken mass of the Adiron- 
dac Mountains. Far over all towered away the lordly 
peak of Tahawas, nick-named Mount Marcy. Its 
cone-shaped summit arose out of a perfect sea of 
mountains, and as I gazed on it I half regretted my 
determination to ascend it. I never looked on an 
Alpine height with such misgivings. It was, however, 
more than twenty miles distant, and a nearer view 
might diminish the difficulties that from this point 
seemed insurmountable. Four miles more through 
the' woods brought us to Lake Sandford, where we 
found the hunter Cheney, who took us in his boat 
five miles further on, to the Adirondac Iron Works. 
These iron works are twenty-five miles from any pub- 
lic road, in the very heart of the forest. Mr. Hen- 
derson, of Jersey City, first visited them. He was 
told by an Indian of their existence, and gave him 
two hundred dollars to be conducted to them. The 
mountains around are solid ore, of a very good quality; 
but the carting of provisions in, and the iron out, eats 
up all the profits ; so that though two or three hun- 
dred thousand dollars have been expended on the 
works, not one dollar has been made. It is a lonely 
place, and the smoke of a furnace, and the clink of 
the hammer, are strange sights and sounds there. 
But of these, more anon. 



86 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 



LETTER XIII 



THE FIRE ISLANDS,, 



How true it is that " half the world does not know 
how the other half lives." Sixty miles from New 
York exists a different race of people, who never see 
a city paper, and only know of what is going on in 
this great Babel from those who visit them or those 
who take their game to market. There is a large 
population living on and about the barren Fire 
Islands whose whole means of livelihood is the game 
they kill. These men do not hunt for sport, but as a 
business ; and the amount of wild fowl annually 
slaughtered on the southern shore of Long Island, for 
the New York market, is enormous. A descendant 
of an old family here, which has owned a large terri- 
tory on the south shore ever since New York was a 
colony of England, told me that two families, genera- 
tion after generation, have had the lease of two 
islands of barren rocks, for the sole purpose of killing 
the wild fowl that frequent theui. They allow no others 
to hunt about them. These hunters pay no attention 
to the railroad, and make no use of it for the trans- 
portation of their game to market. They keep a 
wagon going constantly to and frofti New York, as 



THE FIRE ISLANDS. 87 

they did years ago. \Yhen winter sets in, and game 
becomes scarce, many of them go south, in a sloop of 
their own, or hire a passage in some vessel, and shoot 
on the Chesapeake Bay, about Charleston and Mo- 
bile, supplying the southern market with game. 

But, before speaking further of this peculiar class 
of people, I will give a sort of diary of my visit. We 
were on a visit to a friend on the south shore, and 
late in the afternoon drove up to the century-old edi- 
fice, that stood facing the ocean with its time-worn 
front. This old family mansion is the relic of another 
one which stood here when New York was a colony, 
and the owner of it governor under England. It is 
overgrown with vines, and standing as it does in full 
sight of the sea, presents a most venerable appear- 
ance. 

^ After dinner, we rode over to the old Indian tavern, 
^' Connetiquoit" (I think that is the right spelling), 
where gentlemen from New York stop in their hunt- 
ing expeditions in this region. Two deer had been 
killed during the day, and one of them lay stark and 
stiff before the door as we drove up. Poor fellow ! 
the fleet limbs that were winged with speed in the 
morning, would never bound through the forest again. 

The rain beginning to descend in torrents, we 
turned our horses' heads homewards, and there, by a 
blazing wood fire, such as you find in the new settle- 
ments alone, composed ourselves for the evening. It 
was Saturday night, and a gloomy night it was. The 
heavens were black as Erebus, while a strong south- 
east wind came from its long track on the Atlantic, 



88 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

and howled with an ominous sound around the old 
dwelling in which w^e were seated. I rose and went 
to the door, and looked out upon the sea. No other 
building was in sight, and the solitude of the scene 
was heightened by the murky heavens, the moaning 
blast, and the deep prophetic voice of the surge as it 
rolled heavily on the shore. The music of the sea 
always finds an answ^ering chord in the human heart, 
especially heard at night when the gathering storm is 
sounding its trumpet and summoning the reluctant 
waves to the coming conflict. There is a sullen 
threatening sound in the roar of the ocean heard at 
such a time, which fills the heart with gloomy fore- 
bodings, and brings before the vision the proud barque, 
reeling to and fro in the tempest, with her masts bent 
and bowed, and her rent sails streaming to the blast, 
and the form of the sailor clinging to the parting 
shrouds, and all the tumult and terror of a shipwreck. 
As I stood listening to the Atlantic speaking to the 
shore that hurled back its blow, the flame of a light- 
house five miles distant, on one of the Fire Islands, 
suddenly flashed up in the surrounding darkness. 
Round and round in its circle it slowly swept, now 
lost in the surrounding gloom, as it looked away from 
me towards the vexed Atlantic, and now blazing land- 
ward through the driving rain. That lantern had 
almost a human look as it slowly revolved on its axis. 
It seemed keeping watch and ward over sea and land 
— now casting its flaming eye over the deep to see 
what vessels were tossing there, and now^ looking 
down on the bay and land to see how it fared with 



THE FIRE ISLANDS. 89 

them in the stormy night. I love a lighthouse, with 
its constant guard over human welfare. After a long 
voyage at sea, baffled by calms and frightened by 
storms, when I have caught the friendly flame of the 
lighthouse welcoming me back to the green earth — 
the first to meet me and to greet me — I have felt an 
affection for it as if it were a living thing. That 
steady watch-fire burning over the deep, through the 
long tempestuous night, for the sake of the anxious 
mariner, is not a bad emblem of the watch and care 
of the Deity over his creatures, tossed and benighted 
on the sea of life. 

How long I gazed on that revolving light I know 
not, but it was the last thing my eye fell on as I 
turned to my couch, and I thought, as I left it blazing 
through the tempest, that it 

" looked lovely as Hope, 



That star on life's tremulous ocean." 

I slept this first night in the ''haunted room." 
I like so mysterious a cognomen to rooms and stair- 
cases in old castles and dilapidated buildings : it is 
in harmony with the place. A fine, elegant mansion 
here on the ocean shore would not have possessed half 
the interest this old time-worn building did. This 
"haunted room" derived its sobriquet horn, a sound 
frequently heard by those who slept in it, as if car- 
riage wheels were rolling up to the door. This sound 
had often waked up the owner of the mansion, and 
roused him to look out and see what visitors were 
coming at so late an hour of the night. The frequent 
9 



90 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

recurrence of this rattling of wheels had ceased to be 
an object of remark, and was attributed bj the family 
to rats or some other similar cause. 

But not long since, a young lady visiting the family 
was placed in this room without any mention being 
made of the mysterious sounds sometimes heard in it. 
She had expected friends during the day, who had 
not come, and consequently their arrival was not an- 
ticipated till the following day. But at midnight 
("the witching hour" when ghosts awake and fairies 
walk their nightly rounds) she was roused from her 
slumbers by the rapid roll of carriage wheels over the 
hard ground. Supposing her friends had come, she 
jumped from bed and hastened to the window. The 
bright round moon was shining down, making the 
woods and fields around almost as light as day. She 
looked up the road, but no carriage was in sight, and 
naught but the still moonlight sleeping over the scene 
met her gaze. She turned back astonished, when the 
rattling of wheels again shook the room. Supposing 
now that the carriage had gone round to the back 
door, she ran through the hall and raised the window 
to greet her friends, but naught but the quiet moon- 
light was there also. She was now thoroughly 
alarmed, and hastened back to her room, when the 
rapid roll of wheels again met her ear. This crowned 
the mystery, and she gave a shriek and went into 
hysteric fits. Since then, it has been called " the 
haunted room." 

I slept none the less soundly for these stories, not 
being given to superstitious fears. I am more afraid 



THE FIRE ISLANDS. 91 

of man than I am of his ghost, and of his spirit than 
of all the other spirits and mysterious forms of air 
that walk the earth or sea. Besides, I should not 
have got up had a dozen carriages arrived ; for if the 
fairies or more sullen ghosts choose to take a drive 
such a wild and stormy night as that, they were wel- 
come to their taste. I had certainly no objection to 
their taking their own mode of amusing themselves, 
provided they kept out of doors. 

But it is strange how strong the superstitious feel- 
ing is in man. Some of the best and strongest- 
minded men I have ever known have been subject to 
fears that a child should be ashamed of. To see the 
moon over the left shoulder will bring bad luck, and a 
journey commenced on Friday will end unfortunately. 
So do men, sensible men, talk. A few rats between 
the walls, or confined air creeping through some 
aperture in the building, will drive a lady into con- 
vulsions. 



92 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 



LETTER XIV. 



THE FIRE ISLANDS. 



It was Sabbath morning, when I arose and threw 
open the shutters. The mist-covered ocean lay like a 
sleeping giant before me, stretching his arms up into 
the land, and the drizzling rain came down without a 
sound. Out by the barn, a negro was feeding a flock of 
black turkeys, while three or four goats had mounted 
an old wagon, trying, apparently, to imagine it was 
a rock. The poor creatures, having nothing else to 
climb, and unable to restrain their propensities, mount 
the fences, wagons, or anything that looks like an 
eminence. 

After breakfast, we packed ourselves into a close- 
covered Rockaway, and started for the church, some 
five miles off. It was built at the private expense of 
the lady I was with, and was the only place of pub- 
lic worship for miles around. The Methodists had 
preaching, now and then, in a school-house in the 
woods, which we passed on our way to church. The 
church to which we were bound is a little box of a 
thing, capable of holding perhaps two hundred peo- 
ple. The storm had kept many at home, and the con- 
gregation on this day amounted to perhaps sixty or 



THE FIRE ISLANDS, yd 

seventy. The sermon was a mere expansion of the 
story of the woman who was cured of an issue of blood. 
The preacher was a young man of ordinary intellect. 
He was also somewhat embarrassed, which spoiled the 
delivery of the sermon. The simple narrative of the 
New Testament he took for an outline sketch, which 
he filled up to suit his imagination. 

But there was something primitive about this place 
of worship that interested me; and as I came out and 
looked on the faded forest on one side, and the far- 
receding ocean on the other, while all was silent and 
still around, it did not seem possible that I was within 
a few hours' ride of New York and its Babel-like con- 
fusion. It seemed like shoving the western frontier 
up to the city, and from its wild borders looking down 
Broadway, and through the magnificent churches. 

Monday morning was cold and blustering. A chill 
west wind swept the ocean, and raged around the 
dwelling, till every shingle and clapboard seemed 
drumroing against the timbers to keep its fingers 
warm. The fragmentary clouds went trooping fiercely 
over the intensely bright sky; the sea was covered 
with foam, and the deep voice of the waves came 
riding inland on the blast; while a schooner, dragging 
its anchor, drove rapidly along the shore, its naked 
masts reeling to and fro in the gale, around which 
the sea-gulls swept in rapid circles. Our friend said 
that some hunters were to drive deer that day, and 
he wished us to see the manner in which it was done. 
The cold, fierce blast did not give us a very cheerful 
welcome out of doors, but we bundled up and started. 



94 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

The call of the master brought the hounds in full 
chase after us, and we rode over to the hunters' ren- 
dezvous, and were soon in the woods. The common 
way of hunting the deer on Long Island is to start 
several packs of hounds in different directions, and 
then station men along a stream near, in places where 
the deer are found by experience generally to come 
when they take to the water to throw the dogs off the 
scent. I was placed in the heart of the forest, on a 
good point of observation, beside the stream whose 
current swept the shrubs and flag's that almost buried 
it from sight. Standing on a board to keep my feet 
dry, I turned to the sun to get the full benefit of his 
beams, for I was well-nigh frozen. Here I stood, hour 
after hour, wath naught but the roaring of the blast 
through the pine-trees overhead to break the solitude 
of the scene. Scathed and blighted trunks threw out 
their long withered arms, and swayed them about as 
if reaching blindly after something in the air, and 
groaned on their aged roots; while the tufted tips of 
the pine and hemlock bowed and sprung as if curt- 
seying to the Avind. The deep cry of the hounds, as 
they opened on the track, had soon died away on the 
blast, and I had nothing to do but stand and watch 
the forest as the swaying tree-tops traced all kinds of 
diagrams on the sky. Suddenly, one tall pine-tree 
seemed to swing to a passing gust as if its founda- 
tions were yielding ; then, sallying back as if to col- 
lect its energies 'for the terrible leap before it, it 
stretched heavily forward, and came, with a crash that 
shook the banks, to the ground. The fall of a lordly 



THE FIRE ISLANDS. 95 

but blighted tree, all alone in the depths of the forest, 
is one of the most lonely things in nature. As if it 
were not enough that its green crown should wither 
among its fellows, and its glory depart, it must stoop 
from its proud, erect position, and lie prone on the 
earth. Its great heart is at last broken, and it buries 
its mighty forehead in the earth. A falling tree seems 
always a conscious being to me. With these thoughts, 
however, was mingled a little personal concern for 
myself, and I began to measure rather anxiously the 
distance between me and several old trees that the 
wind seemed determined to rock out of their places. 
I calculated with the nicest precision the exact length 
of several that bowed towards me, in a salutation I 
could have dispensed with, and the direction others 
would probably take. No more fell, however, and at 
one o'clock I turned my steps out of the forest. I had 
seen and heard nothing during the day but the shaking- 
trees and the fierce blast. Arrived at the place of 
rendezvous, no one had seen a deer; but on one of 
the stands two successive shots had been heard, and 
the gentleman placed there had not come in. He 
soon appeared, however, but bringing nothing with 
him. He was a gentleman of rank in Europe, and 
was equal to business plans that embraced a conti- 
nent; but a deer could unnerve him. He had never 
seen one of these noble animals, in all its wildness and 
beauty, face to face, until this day. Sitting on the 
bank, a beautiful doe had entered the stream before 
him without seeing him, and there, at the distance of 
five rods, stood for five minutes, looking with its wild 



96 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

yet gentle eyes towards his place of ambush. With a 
double-barreled gun, loaded with forty buck shot, he 
fired at her. With a sudden bound she cleared the 
bank, and sped unharmed away. 

The effect of a noble deer, on one who has never 
seen one in the forest, is most singular. The gentle- 
man with whom I stopped told some anecdotes of 
New Yorkers, that were almost incredible. A fine 
deer throwing his proud antlers through the forest, 
as he outstrips the wind in his flight, is a beautiful 
sight. To kill one, as he thus springs away in all the 
pride of freedom, seems downright cruelty; and one's 
heart always relents when the deed is done, unless 
long practice has rendered him accustomed to it. But 
the hunter laughs at such sentiment, and can see no 
difference between killing a deer and a lamb. 

A gentleman who had never seen a deer in his na- 
tive forest, told me that, being stationed in a place 
with his gun where one was expected to pass, he saw 
him approach and retire without molestation. He 
heard a crashing through the under-brush, and the 
next moment a noble buck bounded past him, with all 
that beauty and strength for which the deer is re- 
markable. He gazed on him as he rose and fell in his 
long bounds through the forest, in such perfect ad- 
miration, that he forgot he had a gun. It never 
occurred to him that such a noble animal was to be 
shot, until he was out of his reach. " Why," said he, 
"I could not have killed him if my life had depended 
on it." 

The instinct with which God has endowed the deer 



THE FIRE ISLANDS. 97 

for self-preservation seems sometimes like the cun- 
ning and reason of man. A gentleman, an old hunter, 
told me that not long since he chased a doe all day 
through these woods without succe-ss, and was per- 
fectly astonished at the cunning she exhibited in 
baffling her pursuers. The hounds aroused her early 
in the morning, when she bounded away, leaving them 
far behind. After running an hour or so she laid down 
to rest till t^e dogs, followed close by the hunter, on 
a full gallop through the woods, came up, when she 
again started off. She managed in this way till noon, 
and then adopted a different expedient. Coming to a 
public road, she walked up and down it in the same 
track several times, and then sprang with a long leap 
into the forest. The dogs, when they arrived, ran up 
and down the road, making the forest ring with their 
deep bay, perfectly baffled. But when the hunter 
came up, knowing the cunning of the animal, he be- 
gan to beat about the bushes, and soon set the hounds 
on the track. Following close after, he at length got 
sight of her galloping slowly through an open field, 
apparently not in the least frightened, keeping her 
enemies at a safe distance behind her as she stretched 
over the plain. Still unable to throw them from the 
track, she dashed into a flock of sheep, and began to 
chase them over the field. Scattering them hither and 
thither in confusion, she soon got the dogs pursuing 
them, and then boldly pushed again for the forest. 
But the hunter being at hand to assist the dogs, they 
were soon again in hot pursuit. As the last resort, 
after doubling a while through the woods, she dashed 



98 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

towards the ocean, and following an inlet along its 
margin at low-water mark (it was low tide), swam 
boldly out into the bay, and, taking a long semicircle, 
landed on a distant point, and sought for the last time 
the shelter of the forest. When the hounds came up, 
the rising tide had obliterated nearly all the tracks, 
and, it being now dusk, the chase was given up, and 
the noble deer that had struggled so bravely for life 
was saved. It would have been downright cruelty to 
have slain her after such an effort to live. It would 
have seemed like slaying a rational being. 

What a world this is ! — one half pursuers, the other 
half pursued: half straining every nerve to save life, 
the other half equally intent on destroying it. Thus 
instinct battles instinct, and passion passion, and has 
done since the fall cursed the earth. 



THE FIRE ISLANDS. 99 



LETTER XV. 

THE FIRE ISLANDS. 

I WILL trouble you with only this letter from the 
Eire Islands. The morning after our unsuccessful 
deer expedition, the huntsmen started out again. It 
was an Indian summer day in appearance and tem- 
perature. Not a breath of air shook the withered 
leaves that drooped from the branches, while the 
smoky atmosphere drew a veil over the sky and earth, 
giving a soft and dreamy aspect to nature. It was 
one of those days when sound is transmitted to a 
great distance, and the whole concave seems a great 
whispering gallery, save that while it transmits it 
also dulls every sound. Again I stood in the depths 
of the forest beside the stream ; but how changed 
had everything become. There was no motion, no 
wild swaying to and fro of the distracted branches, 
no struggle of the old trees to keep their ancient 
foundations. The stream slipped by with a gentle 
murmur, kissing the flags that stooped over it, while 
even the light tread of the "chick-a-dee-dee" could be 
heard on the dry leaves. Not a cloud was on the 
sky, while the sun looked drowsily down through the 



100 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

murky atmosphere, and all was silent, as a great 
forest without wind always is, for 

"The streams were staid and the maples still/' 

It was a fine morning for the huntsman, who delights 
above all things in the cry of the hounds as they 
open on the track. As the forest this morning rang 
and echoed with their deep baying as they struck the 
fresh track, I did not wonder at the excitement often 
witnessed in the chase, and involuntarily there came to 
my mind the opening lines of the Lady of the Lake ; 

The stag at eve had drunk his fill 

Where danced the moon on Morna's rill, 

And deep his midnight lair had made 

In lone Glcnartney's hazel shade ; 

But when the sun his beacon red 

Had kindled on Benvoirlich's head, 

The deep-mouthed bloodhound's heavy bay 

Resounded up the rocky way ; 

And faint from farther distance borne 

"Were heard the clanging hoof and horn. 

Several deer were driven this morning, but none 
killed, as most of the hunters were gentlemen from 
New York, to whom the sight of a deer was a new 
object, and what the hunters call the ''buck fever" 
is not an uncommon thing with them. The exhibi- 
tions they frequently make is very ludicrous. It 
was here Mr. Delmonico, of the famous eating-house 
of New York, was found dead. A shot was heard 
during the day on the stand which he occupied, and 
after the hunters had all come in he was missiu^i;. 



THE FIRE ISLANDS. 101 

On going to the spot, he was found fallen with his 
face in the water. His gun, partly reloaded, lay 
beside him. He had evidently seen a deer and fired 
at him and missed. The excitement had brought on 
an epileptic fit, and before he had finished re-charg- 
ing his gun he had fallen. Having pitched forward 
into the water, he was drowned before he could re- 
cover from the fit. 

A Frenchman from the city, standing here one day, 
saw a large buck come leaping down the stream, 
tossing his huge antlers in the air. Without firing, 
he threw down his gun and gave chase, thinking in 
his simplicity that the deer could not possibly get 
through the tangled woods with his branching horns, 
and he could take him alive. 

As I stood beside the stream, from the distant sea 
came the constant dull report of fire arms. It was 
an excellent day for duck shooting on the water, and 
up and down the shore, for eight or ten miles, it was 
an incessant explosion of fire arms. Those who sup- 
ply the New York market with ducks have a curious 
way of taking them. A box just large enough to 
contain and float a man as he lies on his back is 
pushed four or five miles out to sea in some bay, sup- 
ported by two flat boards that spread out like wings 
on either side, to break the waves that would other- 
wise dash over it. Anchoring this in some convenient 
spot, they lie down, and throwing out their decoy 
duck (made of wood), attract every flock that passes 
by to the spot. As they wheel around and stoop to 
the water, the unseen hunter fires his huge double- 
10 



102 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

barreled gun into their midst. In a good day, he 
frequently kills a hundred birds. 

At length I strolled aAvay by myself, intending to 
take a long semicircle through the forest and strike 
the ocean some four or five miles distant. It was 
one of those days in which I love to wander alone 
^' by stream or wave" or through the sombre autumn 
woods, and let the poetry, the thoughtfulness, and 
even the sadness of nature sink into my spirit. Some- 
times I would be ankle deep in the withered leaves 
as I strolled on, I scarcely knew or cared whither. 
Coming at length to an arm of the sea that stretched 
far inland, I followed it down for a mile or two to 
the main shore. It was low tide, and so, with the aid 
of tight boots, I was able to cross the marshes which 
the rising sea floods, and stood at last on the smooth 
sand beach, along which I wandered for more than a 
mile. 

Stand here a moment with me, and look off on the 
solemn ocean. Not a breath of air is abroad, and the 
mighty waters spread away like an endless mirror 
from -fonr feet. The smooth ripple comes with a slow 
and sluggish movement, and lays its gentle lip with- 
out a murmur on the beach ; while flocks of wild fowl 
glance by through the hazy atmosphere, like messen- 
gers from the distant deep, where it melts and blends 
into the smoky horizon. Not a human habitation is 
in sight, and, as you stand and muse, you cannot but 
think of that other " vast ocean" in which you are 
"to sail so soon." 

But listen a moment! Miles out on the slumbering 



THE FIRE ISLANDS. 103 

water, lost in the smoky atmosphere, comes the in- 
cessant report of fire-arms. Scores of these "bat- 
teries" are anchored there. The incessant firing they 
keep up seems like the cannonading between two 
battle ships that are at the work of death. The dull 
and heavy sound is increased in volume on the sea, 
and, by the state of the atmosphere, and the uninter- 
rupted bom! bom! from the distant mist-wrapped 
ocean, awakens strange feelings in one just from the 
stir and tumult of city life. There is not an interval 
of ten seconds between these explosions. Sometimes 
there are several discharges at once, like a whole 
broadside, and then a rolling fire like that which goes 
from stem to stern of a ship, and then a straggling 
shot jarring the atmosphere with its report. As a 
sort of interlude to all this, from an unseen island, 
three or four miles distant, rises a confused and con- 
stant scream from myriads of sea fowl congregated 
there — keeping up one of the wildest concerts I ever 
listened to. Rising as it does out of the mist, and, 
as it were, in response to the constant explosion along 
the sea, like the cries of the wounded and dying on 
a field of battle, and just as twilight is deepening 
over the water, it imparts inconceivable wildness and 
mystery to the scene. In the midst of this mighty 
solitude, I stood absorbed and impressed beyond mea- 
sure, and lingered till the increasing darkness and 
the rising tide admonished me it was time to return. 
A new world of thought and emotion had been born 
within me in the few hours I had mused on that soli- 
tary shore. 



104 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 

How impressive nature is in all her aspects. 
Whether she looks in one's face from the smiling 
landscape of a New England vallej, or humbles one 
amid the glaciers and snow-fields and shuddering 
abysses of Alpine solitudes, or saddens the heart 
with the murmur of waves and broad expanse of the 
mysterious sea, she presents the same attractions and 
has the same chasteninor effect. I never shall foro;et 
that afternoon stroll by the ocean around the Fire 
Islands. 

The next morning, we were to leave for the city. 
The sky was overcast as I rose and looked out on 
the ocean. It seemed preparing for one of those 
warm, quiet, drizzling rains. The atmosphere in 
such a state always has great refracting power from 
the moisture it contains, and I was struck with the 
appearance of buildings on the Fire Islands. Usually, 
they seemed (as they really did) to stand up some of 
them several feet from the shore, but now I could see 
distinctly the shining surface of the water beyond 
their foundations. Where the island was low, it ap- 
peared now to be cut in two, and the bright water 
passed entirely through to the ocean beyond. The 
lighthouse, which was elevated on a rock, now sat in 
the sea, if there was any reliance to be placed in 
one's eyes. Through a powerful spy-glass I could 
distinguish the water on three sides of it as distinctly 
as I could see the lighthouse itself, and had I not been 
informed otherwise, should have had no doubt the build- 
ing stood in the water, and that the island here and 
there was really divided. This deception was owing 
to the refracting power of the atmosphere. The rays 



THE FIRE ISLANDS. 105 

of llglit were reflected strongly from the polished sur- 
face of the water, while so few came from the dusky 
beach to make it invisible to the eye. The atmo- 
sphere refracting the rays from this smooth surface 
lifted it up from its real level and threw it apparently 
above the land. At least this is my explanation, 
and it is rational and philosophical whether true in 
this case or not. The lady of the mansion told me 
that she had frequently seen ships at sea directly 
over the island, when no part of the ocean is visible 
over it, even from the top of the house. This re- 
minds me of the report that, in a peculiar state of the 
atmosphere. Lake Ontario has been seen from Ro- 
chester lying calm and distinct against the distant 
horizon. At sea, I have heard captains relate hav- 
ing seen ships that were not visible from deck, mast 
downwards in the clouds. Mentioning this circum- 
stance to the lady, she said she had witnessed the 
same singular appearance several times from her 
house. The explanation of this phenomenon I will 
leave to some one else. 

It was with regret I bid the hospitable, intelligent 
and generous inmate of the mansion adieu, and 
turned again towards the city. I know of no life 
more desirable than that of a large landholder whose 
residence is fixed on some such picturesque spot as 
this. 

THE END. 



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